DLRCC Tourism Hosts Polycentric Sustainable Tourism Workshop at Airfield Estate

DLRCC's Tourism Development section organised a very successful workshop on Polycentric Sustainable Tourism (POST) at the Airfield Estate on September 30th, 2025. 

The workshop’s main objective was to see how the new ideas and methodologies associated with POST might be most fruitfully applied to the question of how to encourage visitors to spend more time in the rural areas of Dún Laoghaire Rathdown, specifically the Dublin Mountains.

The event was hosted by Tourism Development at DLRCC and run by ATU Sligo. Among the stakeholders in attendance were representatives from Dún Laoghaire Rathdown  County Council, the Dublin Mountains Partnership, the Fingal Leader Programme, Fáilte Ireland and a range of businesses and activities providers based in the area. Also attending were Councillor Jim Gildea, Cathaoirleach of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council  and councillors representing the Glencullen-Sandyford ward.

A number of well-received talks provided the foundation for the discussions and activities that followed. Among these talks was a presentation in which James Hanrahan, Sustainable Tourism Lecturer and Researcher at ATU Sligo, introduced the concepts of sustainable and polycentric tourism and explored their relevance to generating longer visits to the Dublin Mountains region. Also notable was a well-illustrated talk in which Fiona McKenna, Sustainable Destination Development Officer at Clare County Council, detailed the ongoing campaigns to generate and manage sustainable tourism flows  across the county of Clare while highlighting the potential relevance of these campaigns to the development of tourism-related business in the Dublin mountains.

After the talks concluded, there was a period in which ideas were freely exchanged between the stakeholders. This aspect of the workshop was skilfully managed by an events-coordinating team from M-CO.  Central to the interactive discussions and activities was a process in which the attendees working in teams used visual cues and notes to construct prototype pitches for actions that would help to stimulate sustainable tourism and related increased business activity in the Dublin Mountains area.  A representative from each team then presented their team’s pitch to the room. Among these presentations were ideas for sustainable campervan parks; faster and more efficient ways to conduct and share ecological impact studies; and how to brand the Dublin Mountains as an immediately identifiable cohesive region in a way that would appeal to visitors.  Throughout the morning, new possibilities for alternative accommodation and for transport to and within the region were explored.