VIAGOGO, the world’s largest online marketplace for buying and selling live event tickets, is to open its new purpose built international operations centre in Limerick where it plans to create hundreds of jobs.
The investment is supported by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation through IDA Ireland. Currently employing 50 staff at its Mount Kennett base in the city, the company will move to the former Flextronics plant in the National Technological Park in Castletroy where it plans to recruit “in the hundreds”.
Viagogo was founded in the UK in 2006, its global online platform has grown hugely since then to offer services to customers in 100 countries to help people to buy and sell tickets to live sports, entertainment and theatre events all over the world.
The new Limerick operations centre, due to open later this year, is recruiting for a wide variety of technical and customer service roles for people with a range of skills and languages including English, German, French, Italian and Spanish.
Operations manager for the Viagogo Group, Edward Parkinson commented, “We reviewed many locations for our latest operations centre but we chose Limerick for its reputation as a place of excellence and local talent. We have already recruited in the tens but numbers are expected to reach the hundreds in due course.”
“The primary role of our international customer services team is to ensure that all of our customers have a great experience when buying or selling event tickets, wherever they are in the world,” Mr Parkinson explained.
Fine Gael TD Kieran O’Donnell this week welcomed the major jobs investment by Viagogo and said he is confident that the job numbers will “ramp up” over time.
“This is great news for Limerick and particularly for the Castletroy area of the city. It is particularly heartening that the quality of the workforce in Limerick is a key driver of Viagogo’s decision to come here,” said Deputy O’Donnell.
“One of the things to note about this latest jobs investment is that we once again see a world-class internet business choosing Limerick as a key location. This latest announcement is testament to the workforce here, the quality of our graduates, and the importance of Shannon Airport as a transport hub for the region,” he commented.
Labour Party TD and Minister for Housing and Planning, Jan O’Sullivan, described Viagogo’s decision to locate to the city as very positive news for Limerick.
“I understand that the talent of the local workforce was a key factor in attracting this blue chip company to Limerick. This highlights the vital importance of investing in research and education to ensure that our economy remains competitive and can attract the world’s leading companies,” she said.
According to Limerick City and County Council chief executive Conn Murray the Viagogo announcement reinforces Limerick’s attractiveness as an investment location on the back of recent announcements in the medical devices and financial services sectors.
“The graduates skills and research available from our third level institutions will be further utilised as the company expands and news of this development has given a great lift to the local economy,” he added.
