Abstract:

Measuring the effectiveness of the Irish Tourist Board's promotional activities is a continuing process, because of the need to: 1. Justify enough financial support for the organisation's work, and 2: Maintain improvement of effectiveness. Ireland's over-all performance should be seen in the context of two basic considerations: a. Competition; b. History, our progress from year to year. Investment in development shows, unfortunately, only long-term returns, and this is true of much marketing expenditure too. Rising national receipts from tourism in any year cannot be attributed entirely to larger appropriations in that year, or indeed in any one previous year. Indeed, the problem of measuring effectiveness has so far proved insoluble to any national tourist organisation which has attempted its solution anywhere in the world. What follows gives some illustration of the persistent concern of the Irish Tourist Board to measure the results of its activity, and of progress to date.