*Visitors at the Cliffs of Moher.
VISITOR numbers at the Cliffs of Moher are up eight percent while plans to run a shuttle bus from surrounding villages to the tourist attraction in 2025 represent “an exciting and big project” and a draft of the new strategy for the walking trail is “due imminently”.
Director of the Cliffs of Moher Visitor Experience, Geraldine Enright addressing the first-ever meeting of the Tourism Development Strategic Policy Committee of Clare County Council described the eight percent increase in visitor numbers as “positive”. Figures released in June showed that revenues at the Cliffs increased in 2023 by €3m to €13.8m.
She said, “it is key to ensure people that come to the Cliffs of Moher have a safe visit, that they come and leave with grounds that are well kept and maintained and leave with a good experience”.
Ms Enright outlined, “A key part of what we do is visitor management, an adequate distribution across the day, month and year”. Opening hours have been increased with the introduction of “dynamic pricing” to encourage more visitors during off-peak times.
Currently, the country’s most visited outdoor attraction is “operating under daily capacity, we’ve capacity for coaches and cars, we’ve a role in marketing, retaining and distributing visitors in Clare, we put together packages that get people to stay locally”.
Delivering on the sustainable tourism strategy forms part of all “key projects,” Geraldine said. Adapting digitally is important to keeping pace with movement in the online and tourism markets, she maintained. Delivering for the local economy and community, local transport and optimising visitor experience are among the pillars that the Cliffs of Moher strategy has to adhere to, she said.
Work on this strategy has been ongoing since November 2019 with several rounds of public consultation completed, a strategic environmental assessment was carried out as part of this in 2024 while further documents are to be finalised. “One of the key focuses of strategy is to deliver sustainable transport in North Clare to take pressure off the access route to the Cliffs and the roads”.
Geraldine continued, “In North Clare in 2025 visitors coming to the area or staying in the area will be able to take a shuttle between the villages and onto the Cliffs of Moher it is going to be an exciting and big project for 2025”.
She acknowledged that the coastal walk management plan is “to the forefront of people’s minds”. She added, “we are working with other agencies to deliver that plan in consultation with stakeholders with landowners central to that”. A draft on this place is “expected imminently either in December or January 2025,” she confirmed. In August, the Clare Local Development Company announced the temporary closure of part of the Cliffs of Moher Walk to undertake safety work on several sections which remained closed. Last December the Council appointed TOBIN engineers to develop a Management Plan for the Coastal Walk.
Cllr Joe Garrihy (FG) said creating “sustainable communities” must be at the heart of the Cliffs of Moher strategy. “It is all about getting to a starting line, getting hold of the assets and being leading player in critical sphere for Clare,” he stated. He added, “Tourism is much more important for a couple of perspectives, it was under rural directorate that most of these were agreed on, tourism is much more impactful because of the impact it has but the opportunity it brings, managing that to ensure our vision goes behind supporting that”.
Within North Clare “the impact is huge on traffic management” from the Cliffs of Moher, Cllr Garrihy flagged. The opportunity for towns and villages along with small and medium enterprises to benefit as a result of the Cliffs’ success needs to be grasped, he stressed. “Now work our assets and our footfall and also develop products in towns and villages, the five star project is commendable, we want to focus to have a complimentary project in our towns and villages which doesn’t have to be five star. It carries an opp but also a threat if we don’t do it because it will bypass them. I see enormous opportunity, we’re at the starting line, the culture we embed into this is vital”.
Clare IFA Chair, Tom Lane noted the importance of bringing landowners along as part of the development of the coastal trail at the Cliffs. “The impact of developing something on those lines is that you don’t take from the quality of life of the people. Members of IFA not just in Doolin but throughout the Burren say the impact of tourism which has gone out of control has a negative impact”. Sustainable traffic management must be a key component of the strategies, he believed.
Kilfenora based Andy Lambert who is the Clare PPN’s representative on the SPC noted that the local attitude to tourism “is quite ambivalent if not negative on the impact to them”. He added, “Clare County Council does produce a wonderful array of strategies but the methodology of interacting with communities does need to be looked at”.
