If the Rugby World Cup was held in Ireland attract up to 350,000 visitors and also generate anything up to €800m in revenue for the country and thousands of jobs according to W2 Consulting co-founder and former Ireland Rugby Player Keith Wood.
W2 Consulting provides strategic research, planning, evaluation and project implementation specialising in the tourism and sport sectors.
The claim was made at the launch of the Shannon Airport European Sport Tourism Summit 2015. The event will be held in Thomond Park Stadium, Limerick on May 14th and 15th next and has Independent News & Media as its media partner. It will hear from international experts how Ireland can exploit its huge potential in what is the fastest growing sector in global tourism and win bids for major global events like the Rugby World Cup.
Ireland’s Winning Rugby Captain Niamh Briggs and ex Munster, Ireland and the British and Irish Lions player David Wallace were on hand to officially launch the Summit at Shannon Airport last week. Keith Wood said that while the Rugby World Cup is the sport tourism event on all Irish lips, there is huge opportunity for Ireland to grow its current estimated annual revenue of €50m from the sector by multiples.
He said, "Every effort is being made to secure the event for Ireland and so it should as the return would be more than worth the investment. I believe that a Rugby World Cup in Ireland is one of few that would could actually break even as Ireland is such a popular tourism destination anyway, western Europe is the biggest global market for rugby and we have excellent access to facilitate that.
It would attract up to 350,000 visitors and also generate anything up to €800m in revenue for the country and thousands of jobs. Couple that with the €200m we anticipate sport tourism will be generating annually and you hit the €1bn mark in terms of revenue from sport tourism in one year. That’s the same amount that Northern Ireland is seeking to grow its entire tourism industry to by 2020."
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