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Tralee is up for a Best Large Town award.
TRALEE is one of four towns shortlisted for the Best Large Town award in the upcoming 2015 Fáilte Ireland Tourism Towns Awards.
It’s fantastic news for Tralee and shows how much has been done locally to get the town to this level.
Tralee will face stiff competition from Cobh, Kilkenny and neighbours Killarney in the category, where the winner will be announced at a ceremony in The Morrison Hotel on Wednesday 25th November.
Two overall winners will ultimately share the accolade of Ireland’s top Tourism Town – for the Best Large Town and the Best Small Town.
Kenmare and Sneem are the other Kerry towns included in the top ten highly recommended tourism towns shortlist for the award at an announcement today at the National Tidy Towns Awards in the Helix, Dublin.
The Top Ten Highly Recommended Tourism Towns shortlisted for 2015 are:
Best Small Town
Adare, Co Limerick
Ardmore, Co Waterford
Clonakilty, Co Cork
Kenmare, Co Kerry
Lismore, Co Waterford
Sneem, Co Kerry
Best Large Town
Cobh, Co. Cork
Killarney, Co Kerry
Kilkenny, Co Kilkenny
Tralee, Co Kerry
The Tourism Town Award, which is now in its fourth year, was specifically designed by Fáilte Ireland to encourage more Irish towns and villages to work together to enhance their appeal to tourists visiting their local area.
Each year, the 100 top scoring towns from the previous years’ Tidy Town Competition are deemed to be eligible and invited invited to apply for the Tourism Towns Award.
The shortlisted towns have already been subject to a series of unannounced inspections from a team of independent ‘secret shoppers’ who visited each location and assessed the quality of their visitor experience. The independent judges are now examining all aspects of each town’s appeal and will be deliberating over the coming weeks to decide which towns are Ireland’s ‘Best Large Tourism Town’ and ‘Best Small Tourism Town’.
Speaking today Fáilte Ireland’s Paddy Mathews, welcomed the announcement of the shortlist for 2015 –
“This award was designed by Fáilte Ireland and is all about recognising those Irish towns and villages where the local community goes the extra mile to enhance their appeal to tourists. Over the last few years we have been impressed with the interest in the awards and even more so with the effort local communities and businesses put into developing their towns’ visitor experience.
“We are now eagerly anticipating the culmination of the search for ‘Best Small Tourism Town’ and ‘Best Large Tourism Town’ at our award ceremony in November. That said, taking into account the great commitment to the traditionally warm Irish welcome we have witnessed in communities throughout the country, Tourism itself is the big winner and as a sector we are most fortunate that Irish people at large have a sense of pride and ownership in the manner we greet our visitors.”
