Published: Wednesday, 27th May, 2009 2:00pm

Athlone suffers river tourism slump

by Karen Downey

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The number of boats using Athlone Marina has halved over the past year, the Westmeath Independent has learned.

Athlone Town Council confirmed yesterday (Tuesday) that in April and May 2008 some 696 boats used the marina, but with just a few days remaining in the month

of May only 340 boats have used the marina for April and May this year.

However, up to 60 boats could use the marina this bank holiday weekend, but this would still represent a drop-off on last year"s figures. .

And while the numbers using the marina has decreased, it has also been reported by some that significantly less boats are going through the lock gate in Athlone.

Tourist operators in the area have also noticed a change in the number of tourists using the Shannon.

Kerry Sloane of Athlone Cruisers told the Westmeath Independent this week that the river Shannon is now "an Irish river" and said there has been a decrease in the number of German tourists coming to Ireland to cruise on the Shannon over the last number of years. He said German tourists were the main users of the river a number of years ago, but the number of foreign tourists taking cruising holidays was now dropping off.

Speaking about this year"s tourist season he said it was too early in the season to predict whether or not it will be busy or quiet just yet.

Michael McDonnell of Viking Tours added that there has been a big decrease in the number of boats using the river over the past few years, although he was unsure exactly what percentage they had dropped off by. He said in the past number of years the number of coach tours coming to Athlone to avail of trips down the Shannon on his Viking boat had decreased and said many of these tour operators were now using buses that accommodated up to 30 people, when previously they were using coaches which accommodated up to 50 people.

'Athlone has a short tourist season and it"s getting shorter. We used to get a lot of English tourists on coaches in April and May and then they"d disappear again until September, they"d come from Wales, Scotland and England. The numbers coming have been decreasing over the last ten years. We"d get some from Northern Ireland as well and they"re great spenders, but because of the exchange rates we"ve lost our two best trading partners,' he said.

He added that he hopes this year more Irish people will stay at home and avail of the many deals on offer around Athlone. Mr McDonnell said tourist operators in the town needed to work together in order to attract tourists back to the region and cited the Discover Athlone day on June 14 as one such initiative.