Boss of Hidden Heartlands region lives in Mullingar

There’s little chance that the charms and attractions of Westmeath will escape the notice of the tourism officials who are tasked with selling the ‘Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands’ region to visitors.

That is because Fáilte Ireland official Paddy Mathews, who is head of Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands, actually lives in Mullingar.

Up to a a few weeks ago, Paddy was living in ‘Ireland’s Ancient East’ – but a redrawing of the tourism map means a swathe of territory – including all of east Westmeath – has now transferred into ‘Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands’, launched in 2018 after the success of Ireland’s Ancient East and Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way.

“We weren’t sure how successful it would be and whether it would really take off, whether it would get the necessary funding and the backing and the political support,” says Paddy, admitting that Fáilte Ireland was effectively dipping its toe in the water with the concept.

As it happened, the Hidden Heartlands notion did get the hoped-for support and funding and it proved itself as a concept.

“We’re satisfied now, four years into it – not even four years in – that it has been a success; that it is working, that it will work in the future and become even bigger and better.”

While half of Westmeath was Hidden Heartlands, the rest was Ancient East, over time it began to make sense to re-examine the boundaries – “to return the midland counties to the heartlands brand, and let the east be the east”, says Paddy, pointing out that it strained credibility to some extent to have the east extend so far west.

“Now, I think, what we have is a comfortable midlands brand that takes up those midland counties centred on the Shannon.

“That means all of Westmeath, all of Offaly, all of Cavan and a bit more of Tipperary are now wholly within the Hidden Heartland, and I think that’s where they naturally belong.”

Staff

The shortage of staff for the hospitality sector is “undoubtedly a challenge” to those in the business of trying to foster tourism growth, says Paddy.

“Because hospitality opened after a lot of the other sectors following the various lockdowns, a lot of the staff had already migrated to other sectors. So hospitality would have lost a lot of staff to retail, for example.”

There have been some signs lately that recruitment has improved somewhat: “We’re seeing good levels of recruitment at the moment and we’ve a few programmes that we put in place to help industry recruit better and to make tourism hospitality a more attractive offering to prospective employees as well.

“So it’s certainly a challenge at the moment, but, you know, I think that’ll right itself over time as visitors begin to return.

“We’re not up to the demand level, that we would have been at in 2019, for example, where we had a record year.

“While we’ve done well in Hidden Heartland over the last couple of years, introducing the domestic audience to the area – some of them for the first time – we still haven’t regained the revenue and numbers from the international visitor yet, so we’ve got time, as that demand recovers over the next couple of years, to fix that recruitment problem as well, but I’ve no doubt that it will happen.”

Beds

Fortunately, the area doesn’t at the moment need to expand its accommodation offering in a way that would create even more difficulty on the recruitment front. As things stand, Paddy believes, there are probably enough beds to meet current demand.

“But not enough to meet future demand,” he says, adding that he sees the solution as lying in a number of different areas.

“We’re seeing a lot of very positive private investment flow into the region: the likes of Glasson Lakehouse, for example, a huge investment which is ongoing. The developments that are in the pipeline around Hodson Bay, are very positive as well.

“What we’re seeing in those areas as well is that the increased capacity required for accommodation isn’t always in the form of hotel bedrooms: a lot of it is in the form of more alternative forms of accommodation, which tallies well with what Hidden Heartlands has to offer.”

Another example of this is the restoration of woodland cabins by ‘Cabü by the Lakes’ at Killeshandra in County Cavan to provide a high end luxury offering.

That sort of unusual offering appeals to visitors, so the ideal is a mixture of different types of accommodation, Paddy believes.

“I think we have around six per cent of the bed stock within the region at the moment, and probably six or seven per cent of the visitors as well. So we’re sort of well matched at the moment, but if we’re to grow and develop, certainly the accommodation capacity needs to grow.”