A LIMERICK house of worship has been awarded a share of €1million in funding from Fáilte Ireland to facilitate its development as a thriving venue for luxury gala dinners.
St Mary’s Cathedral is one of five sites across Ireland awarded funding to develop as gala dinner venues to ensure that their regions can host business dinners and attract new companies.
The cathedral was awarded a sum of €200,000 under the funding round.
Five new gala dinner locations will be developed under the Fáilte Ireland plan, with sites joining St Mary’s Cathedral in Limerick City including Custom House Quarter in Dublin, Killarney Brewing and Distilling Visitors Experience in Kerry, and St Nicholas’ Collegiate Church and Claregalway Castle, both in Galway.
It is estimated that €67million worth of incremental business events could be delivered for the country over a five year period on the back of this new investment in the gala dinner locations.
According to Fáilte Ireland, gala dinners are a key component of international conferences, incentive trips, and large corporate meetings. The tourism body added that Ireland’s current gala dinner venue offering is not sufficient to deal with demand.
The tourism body said that St Mary’s Cathedral’s location, history, atmosphere, and acoustics offer a unique gala dinner venue, enhancing any visit to Limerick for business events and delegates, resulting in a positive economic impact for the city and region.
Tourism Minister Catherine Martin said that “the business events industry is a key component of Ireland’s tourism offering and driver of economic benefit for Ireland, with an estimated contribution of almost €800million to our economy and supporting 20,000 jobs”.
Fáilte Ireland CEO Paul Kelly said that “business event delegates inject approximately three times more revenue into local economies than leisure travellers”.
“Business events also benefit the wider tourism ecosystem by driving high-yield business often during mid-week and off-season periods, complementing leisure tourism patterns.
“The overall objective of this focused capital investment scheme is to facilitate the development of ‘wow’ gala dinner venues of scale in Ireland’s premier business events hubs,” Mr Kelly said.
