CEO OF SHANNON GROUP, Mary Considine has insisted “huge work is going on” to market Shannon Airport.

Both Ms Considine and newly appointed Chair, Conal Henry appeared before a sitting of Clare County Council on Monday. How Shannon Airport is marketing itself to capitalise on Dublin Airport’s current difficulties was among the questions posed to the duo.

“We’ve often talked about marketing, we have a highly experienced marketing team,” Ms Considine stated. She added, “We have a very strong presence on social media” and confirmed that targeted campaigns were undertaken to boost promotion of Shannon to a wider catchment area increasing from within a ninety minute drive to a two and a half hour radius emphasising that the experience there is “much easier” than Dublin.

She continued, “We always need to think outside the box and be ahead. We live in a part of the country which is more sparsely populated, Shannon markets itself as being located between the third and fourth largest city, Limerick and Galway”. Recent feedback from consumers has been “fantastic,” Mary said.

Cllr Michael Begley (IND) questioned if enough was done to sell Shannon to the Irish, “I travelled to Nantes two weeks ago and I had to go via Dublin, what struck me was the time from the car park to taking off was two and three quarter hours, the flight was an hour and ten minutes”. The advantages of car parking and access need to be pushed stronger within the country, the Clonlara representative believed.

In response, Ms Considine said a “huge amount of work was going on” and said a new head of brand marketing joined Shannon Group prior to the pandemic.

Hope was expressed that the marketing department was now stronger by Cllr Pat Burke (FG). “I’m glad you have a strong marketing team in place because I remember the last time you were here, which was not too long after the Irish Open in Lahinch which Shannon really missed out on. You said at the time, you hadn’t the budget to promote Shannon for the Irish Open because it had been used up with Munster rugby, I’m glad you now have a good marketing team in place”.

Making more noise on Shannon’s connectivity to the Wild Atlantic Way is essential, Cllr Paul Murphy (FG) argued, “If people look up the Wild Atlantic Way in the United States then Shannon should be coming up on their feed”.

Considine herself admitted to not being an expert when it comes to social media, “A lot of our targeted stuff on social media is linking back to the Wild Atlantic Way, I’m not an expert on this and I won’t pretend I am”.