Ireland triples financial support for business events
22/12/2021
Destination supports funding available when choosing Ireland as your business events host
As part of its plans to grow its international business events footprint and support organisations in their post-pandemic recovery, Failte Ireland’s Meet in Ireland team has increased funding for MICE activities and is now offering up to a maximum of €100,000 per international event, for applications received up until December 2022. This funding may be used to enhance event programmes to ensure delegates have an unforgettable experience.
To qualify, corporate meetings and incentive trips must have a minimum of 50 international delegates in attendance and association conferences have a minimum requirement of 100 international delegates.
Paul Kelly, Fáilte Ireland (Ireland’s National Tourism Development Authority) CEO, said: “To help offset the damage done by the COVID-19 pandemic to Ireland’s MICE industry, we have launched a series of new upweighted business events financial supports in October 2020. Rolled out to help our business events sector get back on its feet, the support was carefully designed to enable Ireland to return to full strength as a world-class MICE destination — and we’re already seeing very positive results.”
Since October 2020, the Meet in Ireland team has supported 78 separate pieces of business, including 18 associations events and 60 corporate meetings and incentive groups, helping to bring a total of 30,543 delegates to Ireland up until the year 2025. Approximately €1 million worth of funding has been offered so far, which will in turn bring in an estimated added value of €440 million back into Ireland within the next four years. Of the 78 events that have seen the benefit of our suite of financial supports, 57 are due to take place across 2021 and 2022 and will deliver an estimated value of approximately €224 million to the country.
As global travel resumes, another important area of focus for the Meet in Ireland team is site inspections. A crucial element for any decision-maker when choosing their next business event destination, site inspections receive both practical and financial supports from the Meet in Ireland team, up to the value of €6,000 for in-person site inspections and €1,000 for virtual site inspections.
As Ireland safely and successfully transitions back to in-person events after a period of virtual-only business activities, it’s expected that around 16,700 delegates will return to Ireland over 2021 and 2022.