2009 Limerick Street Ambassadors Unveiled Posted on June 22nd, 2009
Limerick’s new team of enthusiastic Street Ambassadors was unveiled this afternoon, Monday, June 22nd at Clancy’s Strand, the city’s newly renovated riverside area on the banks of the Shannon.
Dressed in Munster red, the Street Ambassadors will be a familiar and welcome sight on the streets of Limerick during the summer season.
They will provide a friendly first impression to tourists visiting Limerick and will advise them on the best places to visit, eat and shop. They will also supply local hotels with a weekly events guide on what’s happening in Limerick city and keep an environmental watch, reporting litter offences, graffiti and infrastructural defects to Limerick City Council.
Since 2006, the Street Ambassadors, funded by Shannon Development, have helped almost 50,000 visitors to Limerick.
The Limerick Communications Office (LCO) spearheads the scheme which is also being partly funded by the private sector.
Eoghan Prendergast, Limerick Development Division Manager, Shannon Development, said: “Shannon Development is delighted to support the Street Ambassadors to ensure that they will again be a feature on the streets of Limerick this summer. In these difficult economic times, we must make every effort to market and promote the city as an attractive tourism destination, and the Ambassadors play an important role in promoting the city and ensuring that our visitors enjoy their time here”.
This year sees the return of five former Ambassadors plus seven new recruits.
The age group ranges from 17-65 years. (Profiles attached)
LC0 Chairperson Kay McGuinness said there was a huge response to the advertisement for the 2009 programme. She said the main yardstick for the successful candidates was that they would have a love of Limerick and a good outgoing personality to engage with tourists and local people.
“This is a unique project that Limerick can be proud of and we have had excellent teams of Street Ambassadors in the past four years,” she said.
“I am delighted to see that five of our experienced Street Ambassadors are returning to work with us again this summer – it will be of great benefit to our seven new recruits. We would like to thank Shannon Development for supporting the Street Ambassador programme this year which is such a great asset to our city.”
The 12 roving tourist guides have undergone an intensive course in local history, first aid, communications skills and basic foreign language training.
They will walk three different routes every day and at the end of each work shift each pair of ambassadors will fill out a report form covering key issues such as the number of visitors encountered, questions asked, as well as environmental issues.
Last year the roving tourist guides helped 15,000 tourists and encountered sightseers from more countries than ever before. Visitors from as far away as Brazil, New Zealand and Japan enjoyed a trip to Limerick.
The majority of tourists came from the USA and France with a sizeable number from Spain, the UK and Germany
The 2009 street ambassadors include retired traffic warden Albert Cullen and Polish newspaper correspondent Magda Sudol, who are looking forward to their fourth and third years respectively as ambassadors for Limerick.
They’ll be on hand to offer advice to first time recruit, Oliver Hayes from Woodview Park, a retired local soccer referee.
Oliver said: “I’m hugely excited about the prospect of becoming a Street Ambassador! I feel I have the energy, enthusiasm and appetite for the job. As a local referee, I’m used to being out in the rain so I’ve no problem with the weather! But hopefully we’ll get a good summer this year.”
Seventeen year old Kieran Sparling was born and reared in King’s Island, the heart of historic Limerick and is the grandson of well known Limerick author Maureen Sparling.
Kieran said: “Ever since I heard about the Street Ambassadors, I thought it was a great idea. I have a good local knowledge of the city and I love Limerick’s history, its buildings and streets.”
Another young Ambassador, 17 year old Darragh Lyons from Moyross, an amateur moviemaker and musician is excited at the summer ahead.
“It’s very easy to immerse yourself in the history of Limerick and to get lost in stories of sieges, heroes and villains. Limerick people are helpful and courteous, in any other city I’ve never found as many people who smile and say hello,” Darragh said.
The Limerick Communications Office would like to thank the financial supporters of the Street Ambassador Programme 2009.
Primary Sponsors: Shannon Development
Private Sector Support: Holmes O’Malley Sexton
Brown Thomas
PriceWaterhouseCoopers
Greenhills Hotel
EML Architects
Limerick Strand Hotel
AbsoluteHotel.com
Glance Promotions
