Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘Failte Ireland’

Observations from our summer

Posted in All things food, tagged , , on October 16, 2016| 6 Comments »

Summer 2016 has been our third summer of hosting on AirBnB, and has, in fact, been quite different to previous years.

Our guests have typically been mainly from the USA, however, this year our guests were mostly European – mostly either German or English.

our home

We did have a chat with those US guests who did come to stay, about ‘why’ Americans weren’t travelling.  We thought it might be because of the election. However, they said that a lot of Americans are worried about terrorist attacks in Europe and this is why they are not travelling.  We haven’t had the chance to travel this year, but I do wonder do Irish people consider terrorist attacks when travelling in Europe?

Perhaps one of the most interesting conversations I had with guests was based around food!  Are you surprised?

The conversation is particularly pertinent when you read the results of a survey carried out by Failte Ireland:

Developed in partnership with Fáilte Ireland the newly published research examines the perceptions of over 2,500 travellers in ten countries including Ireland. The research also showed that food is now an essential part of the overall visitor experience with 93% of those surveyed reported participating in a food activity on a recent trip. This tells us that the pursuit of a unique and memorable experience is on the rise. While 66% of holidaymakers rated food as important in their overall experience of Ireland this increased to almost one in four (78%) amongst food travellers.

Well guys if food is ‘part of the overall experience’ we, as a nation, need to step up to the plate quite a bit to cater for vegetarians!  Yes, can you believe it, here I am living on a farm where we produce free range pork products and I am asking the Irish nation to improve their vegetarian offerings.

Our guests, a young German couple with their 4 year old son, spent a fortnight travelling around Ireland, staying in B&B’s and eating out.  (Yes, it does surprise us that vegetarians choose to stay with us.)  When I asked what was the vegetarian ‘choice’ like on their travels …. the answer….. soup, pasta or chips.

Come on folks, you can do better than this.

For dinner I made Parmigiana with our own aubergines which they totally enjoyed. My homemade granola and our own eggs for breakfast the next morning were also a big hit.  It was the first time they had been offered eggs for breakfast.

I don’t have a huge repertoire of vegetarian options…. but I can certainly do better than soup, pasta or chips!  I am sure others could to.

 

Read Full Post »

TBEX Europe

Posted in Home, tagged , , , , , , on October 10, 2013| 16 Comments »

Way, way back in probably April or May I heard an interview on the radio about 500 travel bloggers coming to Dublin in October.  My immediate reaction was ‘wouldn’t it be wonderful to go to something like that’!!!

And guess what?  I did get to go!

I won a ticket to attend – major thanks to Failte Ireland who were the host sponsors.

There were close to 600 travel bloggers in Dublin last week for the TBEX Europe conference.  They came from all over the world!

The conference itself was full of useful seminars on writing, travel tips, social media, tourism statistics and developments.  In fact looking back over my notes, it is going to take me weeks to work my way through all I learnt.

There were two highlights for me….. the ‘armchair’ chat with John Minihan….. yes, the photographer that took those iconic photographs of Lady Diana and Samuel Beckett.

The biggest highlight though was the launch party.

I had been told that the launch night on Wednesday was going to be pretty spectacular and I should make an effort to attend.

Guinness Gate

So got the glad rags on and headed to Guinness Storehouse.  My sister came along – as she put it ‘gate-crashing’ (not really) and being moral support.

And yes it was spectacular.  To greet us at Guinness Storehouse – there were folks on stilts, there were flame throwers and there was a samba (type?) band and we hadn’t even gone indoors yet!

TBEX Launch Party

TBEX Launch Party

Once inside it was up a couple of floors where all you could say was WOW!  The food – oysters, prawn cocktails, confit of duck wrapped in cabbage, sushi, pulled pork on Waterford Blaas, cheeses, ice-cream, chicken kebabs, delicious lamb kebabs with a coriander dipping sauce…. I am sure I’ve probably forgotten something.

Ice-cream tubs and cones on ice in wheelbarrow

Ice-cream is served Madam 🙂

And there was wine – Guinness of course – Guinness in Prosecco – I imagine there was probably tea or coffee – no-one was drinking that 🙂

There was music of all sorts – traditional Irish, funky Irish, techno Irish.  All excellent.

Despite the rain, the view from the Gravity Bar did not disappoint.

There were people there from all over the world, and all the Irish people were just ‘wowed’ and over-whelmed by how Ireland was being represented to these travellers.

It truly was a night to feel really, really proud to be Irish.  Well done to Failte Ireland and Guinness Storehouse you did us proud.

Here’s the official ‘movie’ from the night… it will give you a flavour of what a wonderful evening it was.

We were sent home with a little goody bag of Guinness things.  So I thought I’d share some of the wonderful evening with you – partially also to celebrate the blogs 4th birthday!!!

Would you like to own a few Guinness fun and funky things?

Guinness gifts

Guinness gifts

Well leave a comment and we’ll pick a winner.

(Open to folks all over the world!)

Read Full Post »