Today we took a day excursion to visit the town of Kilkenny and the Wicklow Mountains. I have to say that I thought the Cliffs of Moher would have been far and away my favorite place we visited on this trip, but I think the Wicklow Mountains were just as awesome. We started at the bottom and hiked our way through the mountains and saw the lower and upper lakes. While the lower lake was nice it couldn’t compare to the upper lake which almost didn’t even look real to me. It was really cool to be able to have this experience that I will remember for the rest of my life.
Throughout the trip, we spent a lot of time talking about how tourism is a huge import of Ireland. I think the Wicklow Mountains are a great example of the kind of competitive advantage Ireland has in order to try and draw tourism to the country. Their culture and the amazing scenery that can be found all throughout the country like we have found throughout this trip such as the Cliffs of Moher, the different cities, and just the countryside, give Ireland a huge competitive advantage when it comes to tourism. However, Ireland does face some types of challenges with trying to attract tourism into their country. While I don’t know if I believe it since I havent seen it yet, Ireland’s bad weather can be a huge turnoff for people looking for a vacation spot when they can go to an exotic beach and almost be guaranteed beautiful weather. However, based on my experience over the past two weeks, I highly recommend everyone visits Ireland at some point in their life, I know I will be back.