PRESS RELEASE
Thursday, 15th April, 2010
Major push for Kilkenny as City of Culture is launched.
Kilkenny Tourism Hotels Marketing group launched the Culture Card just before Easter to showcase Kilkenny as a Value destination and its showing results already!
The 'Culture cards' are available from all leading hotels in the county and offer the visitor 20% off entry fee to many heritage attractions and 20% off selected lines from many of the wonderful Crafts studios throughout County Kilkenny.
Kilkenny Tourism wanted to devise a 'novel idea' to launch "Kilkenny Inc" for the year to attract new visitors to Kilkenny that might stay for longer. They were keen to include cultural assets such as the world renowned Kilkenny crafts and heritage attractions, and many of these feature, thus widening the "Kilkenny experience" to all who visit.
By offering such a "value added" incentive, the hotels aim to ensure peoples "experience" of Kilkenny would be so positive that they would return home as advocates of the Marble city and thus generate new business for Kilkenny.
The Culture card (cardboard credit card size) is promoted online on www.kilkennytourism.ie and individual hotel websites participating in Kilkenny. It is also promoted via print media PR, radio and travel websites.
The hotels also have embarked on a familiarisation training programme where "front of house staff" were adequately informed of local attractions around the county and city, thus encouraging them to stay longer!
The objective is for each hotel owner to take on the role of ensuring that their front of house staff can offer a 'Concierge' type function, to engage with guests, encourage them to visit local attractions, and maybe to stay longer or at the very least, consider a repeat visit!
To deliver this, it was agreed that Kilkenny Tourism would co-ordinate an internal staff product knowledge familiarization trip around county and city of Kilkenny. The first of these was completed in February and the next training trip will take place on April 27th. All interested in participating should contact info@kilkennytourism.ie