failteireland.ie

Fáilte Ireland approaches regional development by combining national tourism strategy with locally targeted supports: it develops destinations in ways intended to benefit communities across Ireland, and it gives individual tourism businesses a route into that work through funding, training, expert advice and toolkits. If you run a tourism business and want to know how your area or your company can take part, the practical starting point is the "Regional developments" area of failteireland.ie and the support finder organised by what you are trying to achieve.

What "regional development" means on failteireland.ie

The site frames its overall purpose as supporting a competitive tourism sector, helping businesses grow, and developing destinations that benefit communities across Ireland. Regional development sits inside that wider sustainable tourism growth agenda rather than being a separate programme.

Two things follow from that framing:

• Destination-level work and business-level support are connected. Developing a destination is not only about marketing a place; it runs alongside supports that help the businesses inside it become more competitive and sustainable.
• Community benefit is stated as an outcome. The site describes destinations being developed to benefit communities, so regional development is presented as something that should show up locally, not just in national visitor numbers.

How businesses plug into regional development

The site's main entry point is a support finder built around three routes: By Support Type, By Sector, and By Goal. The goal-based route is the most useful if your interest is regional or destination development, because it starts from what you are trying to achieve rather than from a programme name.

The stated goals are:

A business contributing to its local destination typically works across several of these at once — for example, improving competitiveness while developing staff — so it is worth checking more than one goal rather than picking a single category.

Current programmes with a regional or local angle

The page highlights several named supports. These are the concrete examples of how national programmes reach individual businesses:

• Find Yourself on a Short Break — campaign toolkits, imagery and promotional assets that businesses can use to attract short-break bookings across Ireland. This is a destination-promotion route: using shared campaign assets helps put a region in front of visitors planning a break.
• F&B 360° — tailored supports for food and beverage businesses to increase profitability, including one-to-one support, a customised roadmap, clinics for specific challenges, and expert masterclasses. The site invites businesses to express interest.
• Climate Action Programme — expert guidance, practical tools and a tailored sustainability action plan aimed at improving cost efficiency, reducing emissions and future-proofing the business. The site invites applications.

The sustainability programme is the clearest link between business-level action and the site's sustainable growth positioning: cost and emissions reductions are presented as things a business does for itself, with the destination-level benefit following from that.

Research and insights that inform local decisions

Regional and local planning needs data, and the site publishes research under Research & insights, including economic analysis and visitor insights. Examples listed on the page:

• Business of Tourism Report 2026 — tourism data, trends and business opportunities from 2025 performance (listed as July 2026, 5 min read).
• Irish Tourism Quarterly Economic Update March 2026 — benchmarking against 2025 tourism data and planning for 2026 (March 2026, 4 min read).
• Summer travel in 2025: what visitor choices mean for your business — using summer travel insights to plan value, experiences and off-peak demand (November 2025, 22 min read).
• Decoding Gen Z on the Move — shaping experiences, content and offers around Gen Z behaviour (September 2025, 5 min read).

For a business or community group thinking about its area, the off-peak demand angle in the summer travel piece is the most directly relevant to spreading visitor activity beyond peak periods.

Seeing what it looks like in practice

The site also carries case examples under "Real impact. Real results.", including a digital and technology story on how Alive Outside adventure centre transformed its outdoor business, and a people and culture piece following a career from hospitality training to the Guinness Storehouse. These are useful as illustrations of the kinds of change the supports are meant to produce, though they describe individual businesses rather than regional outcomes.

How to follow or take part in your area

1. Start with the goal, not the programme. Use the support finder's "By Goal" route and select the outcome closest to your situation.
2. Check the regional angle. Look at the "Regional developments" section of the site for activity connected to your part of Ireland.
3. Use the campaign assets if you want visibility. The Find Yourself on a Short Break toolkits and imagery are the most direct way to tie your business into a national promotion.
4. Express interest or apply where invited. F&B 360° uses an "Express interest" step; the Climate Action Programme uses "Apply now". Note that the page does not state eligibility criteria, deadlines or costs for these programmes, so confirm those details on the programme pages themselves before committing time.
5. Ground your plan in the published data. Use the Business of Tourism Report and the quarterly economic update to benchmark before you decide where to invest effort.

The main limitation to be aware of: the page describes what the supports are for, but not who qualifies, what they cost, or how long applications stay open. Treat the support finder as a signpost and verify specifics on each programme's own page.

Fáilte Ireland is the organisation that supports a competitive tourism sector in Ireland, helps tourism businesses grow, and develops destinations that benefit communities. Its website, failteireland.ie, is a support platform for tourism businesses and industry professionals, not a consumer booking site. If you run or work in an Irish tourism business, or you're involved in developing a destination, this is where you find funding, training, expert advice, toolkits, and research to help you grow.

Who the site is for

The platform is built around tourism businesses and the people who run them, plus the wider destination and community ecosystem. It is not aimed at visitors planning a trip. The homepage frames everything as "Support to help your tourism business grow," and organises that support in several ways:

• By Support Type — funding, training, expert advice, and toolkits
• By Sector — support tailored to different parts of the tourism industry
• By Goal — support curated around what you're trying to achieve

What you can actually do on the site

The support is grouped by the outcome you're after, which makes it easier to find the right starting point. The main goal-based pathways are:

Alongside these, the site offers specific programmes and campaigns, for example:

• Find Yourself on a Short Break — campaign toolkits, imagery, and promotional assets to help you showcase your business and attract more short-break bookings across Ireland.
• F&B 360° — tailored supports to build commercial resilience in food and beverage, including one-to-one support, a customised roadmap, clinics for specific challenges, and expert masterclasses. You can express interest.
• Climate Action Programme — expert guidance, practical tools, and a tailored sustainability action plan to improve cost efficiency, reduce emissions, and future-proof your business. You can apply.

Research and insights

A significant part of the site is data and analysis to help you plan with confidence. Examples of published material include:

• Business of Tourism Report 2026 — key tourism data, trends, and business opportunities from 2025 performance (July 2026, 5 min read)
• Irish Tourism Quarterly Economic Update March 2026 — benchmark your business with 2025 tourism data and plan for 2026 (March 2026, 4 min read)
• Summer travel in 2025: what visitor choices mean for your business — insights to plan value, experiences, and off-peak demand (November 2025, 22 min read)
• Decoding Gen Z on the Move — Gen Z insights to shape experiences, content, and offers (September 2025, 5 min read)

There are also case studies showing how Irish tourism businesses have improved performance, such as how Alive Outside adventure centre transformed its outdoor business with digital, and a career story from hospitality training to the Guinness Storehouse.

How to decide if it's relevant to you

Use these questions to work out whether the site is worth your time:

• Do you operate a tourism business in Ireland? If yes, the funding, training, and advice pathways are directly relevant.
• Are you trying to grow, compete, or upskill? The goal-based navigation maps to those needs.
• Do you need market data to plan? The research and insights section gives you tourism data, economic analysis, and visitor insights.
• Are you a visitor looking to book a trip? This is not the right site — it's an industry support platform, not a booking service.

If you're in the first three categories, start from the goal that matches your situation and follow the relevant support type. If you're a visitor, look elsewhere for trip planning.

Fáilte Ireland (failteireland.ie) offers a range of supports for tourism businesses, organised by what you're trying to achieve. The named programmes include F&B 360° (food and beverage), the Climate Action Programme, and the Find Yourself on a Short Break campaign toolkit, alongside broader funding, training, expert advice and toolkits. The right one depends on your sector and your goal — start-up, competitiveness, growth, team development, or sustainability.

How the supports are organised

The site groups its business supports three ways, so you can navigate by whichever fits your situation:

• By Support Type — funding, training, expert advice and toolkits
• By Sector — including food and beverage and other tourism sectors
• By Goal — start my business, become more competitive, grow my business, develop my team

If you already know your objective, the "By Goal" route is the fastest way in.

Named programmes and what they involve

F&B 360° — for food and beverage businesses

Aimed at building commercial resilience in food and beverage. According to the site, it includes:

• One-to-one support
• A customised roadmap
• Clinics for specific food and beverage challenges
• A suite of expert masterclasses

The stated purpose is to increase profitability. The entry action on the site is "Express interest" — so this is an expression-of-interest route rather than a direct application.

Climate Action Programme — for cost and sustainability

Designed to help you reduce costs and improve profitability while cutting emissions. It offers:

• Expert guidance
• Practical tools
• A tailored sustainability action plan

The stated outcomes are improved cost efficiency, reduced emissions, and future-proofing your business. The entry action is "Apply now".

Find Yourself on a Short Break — marketing toolkit

A campaign toolkit for reaching people planning a short break. It provides:

• Campaign toolkits
• Imagery
• Promotional assets

The goal is to help you showcase your business and inspire more short-break bookings across Ireland. This is a self-serve marketing resource rather than a structured programme.

Choosing by goal

Research and insights to support decisions

Fáilte Ireland also publishes data and analysis you can use for planning. Examples listed on the site include:

• Business of Tourism Report 2026 — key tourism data, trends and business opportunities from 2025 performance (July 2026, 5 min read)
• Irish Tourism Quarterly Economic Update March 2026 — benchmark your business with 2025 data and plan for 2026 (March 2026, 4 min read)
• Summer travel in 2025: what visitor choices mean for your business — planning value, experiences and off-peak demand (November 2025, 22 min read)
• Decoding Gen Z on the Move — shaping experiences, content and offers (September 2025, 5 min read)

There are also case studies showing how businesses applied these supports — for example, how Alive Outside adventure centre transformed its outdoor business with digital, and a career path from hospitality training to the Guinness Storehouse.

Practical next steps

1. Decide your primary goal (start, compete, grow, team, sustainability, marketing).
2. Use the "By Goal" or "By Sector" filter on failteireland.ie to shortlist relevant supports.
3. For F&B 360°, submit an expression of interest; for the Climate Action Programme, apply directly.
4. For marketing assets, download the Find Yourself on a Short Break toolkits and imagery.
5. Check the research and insights section before committing budget, so your plan reflects current visitor data.

One caveat: the site describes what each programme offers but does not state eligibility criteria, deadlines or costs on the pages summarised here. Confirm those details on the individual programme pages before applying.

Fáilte Ireland publishes three main types of research and insights on failteireland.ie: economic analysis, visitor insights, and tourism data reports. These resources are designed to help tourism businesses benchmark performance, plan for upcoming seasons, and make evidence-based decisions about pricing, experiences, and marketing. The research section is accessible from the main support hub under "Research & insights."

Types of research available

The research and insights section is organised into two broad categories:

Economic analysis

These reports cover tourism performance data, economic trends, and business opportunities. They are useful for understanding how the sector is performing at a national level and for benchmarking your own business against broader trends.

Examples available on the site include:

• Business of Tourism Report 2026 — explores key tourism data, trends, and business opportunities from 2025 performance. Listed as a 5-minute read, dated July 2026.
• Irish Tourism Quarterly Economic Update (March 2026) — provides quarterly data to help businesses benchmark against 2025 tourism figures and plan for 2026. Listed as a 4-minute read.

Visitor insights

These reports focus on visitor behaviour, preferences, and emerging segments. They are useful for shaping experiences, content, and offers.

Examples include:

• Summer travel in 2025: what visitor choices mean for your business — covers summer travel insights to help plan value propositions, experiences, and off-peak demand. Listed as a 22-minute read, dated November 2025.
• Decoding Gen Z on the Move — provides insights on Gen Z travellers to help shape experiences, content, and offers. Listed as a 5-minute read, dated September 2025.

How to use these insights for business decisions

Each report type supports a different planning need:

Where to find the research

The research and insights are listed on failteireland.ie under the "Research & insights" heading within the business support section. Each report is presented with a title, a short description, an estimated reading time, and a publication date. You can browse them directly without needing to filter by sector or goal, though the broader support hub also allows you to search by support type, sector, or goal if you want to combine research with funding, training, or toolkits.

Practical considerations

• The reports are written for tourism businesses operating in Ireland. If your business is outside Ireland, the data may still offer useful context but won't directly reflect your market.
• Reading times range from 4 to 22 minutes, so you can prioritise shorter updates for quick benchmarking and longer reports for deeper planning.
• The site also features case studies (e.g. "How Alive Outside adventure centre transformed its outdoor business with digital") that show how other businesses have applied insights in practice. These can be useful for seeing how data translates into action.

Start at the "How can we help?" section on failteireland.ie and choose the path that matches your situation: browse By Support Type, By Sector, or By Goal. The goal-based route is usually the fastest for business owners, because it sorts supports into four practical stages — starting a business, becoming more competitive, growing the business, and developing your team. Each stage then points to a specific mix of funding, training, expert advice, and toolkits.

The three ways to navigate

The site deliberately offers more than one entry point, so you can start from whatever you already know about your business.

If you are unsure where to begin, the By Goal route removes the most guesswork, because it translates a business situation into a shortlist of supports.

Matching your goal to the right support

The four goals on the page map to distinct needs and support formats:

• Start my business — early-stage support to turn a vision into a working business. Best for pre-launch or very new operators.
• Become more competitive — expert advice to deliver more value and improve performance. Best for established businesses that are stable but want to sharpen their offer.
• Grow my business — funding, sales opportunities, and market insights. Best when you have a proven product and want to scale reach or revenue.
• Develop my team — skills building, confident recruitment, and staff retention. Best when people, not product, are your constraint.

Worked example: a food and beverage business

A restaurant or food-led tourism business aiming to improve margins would land on F&B 360°, which the site describes as tailored supports to increase profitability. In practice this includes one-to-one support, a customised roadmap, clinics for specific food and beverage challenges, and a suite of expert masterclasses. The page offers an "Express interest" action rather than an instant sign-up, so expect a follow-up step before you are enrolled.

Worked example: cutting costs and emissions

A business whose priority is cost efficiency would find the Climate Action Programme, which the site frames around improving cost efficiency, reducing emissions, and future-proofing the business through expert guidance, practical tools, and a tailored sustainability action plan. This one uses an "Apply now" action, so it follows an application route rather than an expression of interest.

Note the difference between "Express interest" and "Apply now" — they signal different levels of commitment and different next steps, so read the action label before assuming you are enrolled.

Using research before you commit

Support decisions are easier when you can benchmark against real data. The Research & insights section is the place to check before choosing a programme, and it covers tourism data, economic analysis, and visitor insights. Examples currently listed include:

• Business of Tourism Report 2026 — key tourism data, trends, and business opportunities from 2025 performance (listed as July 2026, 5 min read).
• Irish Tourism Quarterly Economic Update March 2026 — benchmarking with 2025 tourism data and planning for 2026 (March 2026, 4 min read).
• Summer travel in 2025: what visitor choices mean for your business — planning value, experiences, and off-peak demand (November 2025, 22 min read).
• Decoding Gen Z on the Move — shaping experiences, content, and offers (September 2025, 5 min read).

Use these to work out which goal actually applies to you before you pick a support. For example, if the summer travel insights show demand shifting off-peak, that may push you toward the growth route rather than the competitiveness route.

Checking what the support actually delivers

The site also publishes case examples under "Real impact. Real results.", showing how Irish tourism businesses improved performance. One listed example is Alive Outside adventure centre, described as transforming its outdoor business with digital (3 min read). Another is a career story, From hospitality training to the Guinness Storehouse: Finn Lyons' career in tourism (4 min read). Reading a case in your sector is a quick way to judge whether a programme's format — one-to-one advice versus a masterclass versus a toolkit — suits how you work.

A practical sequence

1. Go to the "How can we help?" section.
2. Pick By Goal if you are unsure; pick By Support Type or By Sector if you already know your constraint.
3. Read the goal description and confirm it matches your stage.
4. Open the specific programme and note whether the action is "Express interest" or "Apply now".
5. Check the Research & insights items relevant to your sector to sanity-check your priority.
6. Read a "Real impact" case in a similar business before committing time.

The site does not state pricing for these supports on the material reviewed here, so do not assume any programme is free — confirm terms at the point of expressing interest or applying.