Community engagement in drive tourism in Ireland: case study of the Wild Atlantic Way

ABSTRACT

This paper presents research, which investigates community engagement in drive tourism in Ireland. In particular, it focuses on the Wild Atlantic Way (WAW), Ireland’s first long distance drive touring route stretching along the Atlantic coast for 2500 km from Donegal to West Cork. Face-to-face surveys were carried out to obtain a representative sample of community stakeholders along this touring route. The findings provide insight into the level of community engagement with drive tourism on the WAW with a high level of approval for the project but a low level of community integrated involvement with this drive-tourism product. This paper concludes that while there are low levels of community engagement with the WAW, there is a significant level of community support for the development of the WAW. However, to acquire community engagement in tourism development requires sustainable planning to maximize community benefits and minimize community costs thus increasing community participation, which is somewhat lacking.

KEYWORDS:

• Community
• community engagement
• drive tourism
• Wild Atlantic Way (WAW)
• Ireland

Notes on contributors

Dr James Hanrahan lectures in the School of Business and Social Sciences at the Institute of Technology, Sligo, Ireland. His lines of research are particularly focused on tourism planning and management and planning for sustainable destination management as well as focusing on community participation in the tourism planning process.

Kelly Maguire is a doctoral researcher in the School of Business and Social Science at the Institute of Technology Sligo, Ireland. She has worked with Local Authorities in planning events and also facilitated community engagement with mega events throughout Ireland. She is an independent research consultant in technologies for tourism and travel apps. Her research interests include community engagement in events, sustainable planning and event management, certification and Local Authority planning for tourism.

Professor Stephen Boyd is based at Coleraine in the Ulster University Business School, Northern Ireland. He has researched and published in many areas of tourism but is more known for his work in heritage tourism, tourism and national parks, dark and political tourism, and the relationship between tourism and world heritage sites. His most recent research has involved looking at motivation at key nodes along the Henan Province section of the Silk Route in China. He is visiting research professor at Luoyang Normal University in Henan Province, China.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.