Posts Tagged ‘ Tourism Ireland ’

Adrian considers the staycation summer that boomed and wnders whether we will return to three favourite British holiday destinations – Egypt, Tunisia and Turkey.

With the Paralympics, cake trails inspired by The Great British Bake-Off, a space-themed kids area at Washington Dulles airport and free-interest installment ways to buy holidays, Adrian is spoilt for choice this week.

After Brexit what happens when we want to visit the Republic of Ireland? Will people be able to cross the border easily? Will visas be required?

Adrian explains why he won’t be flying first class on United but maybe he – or you – will win a trip to Taiwan

This is the name given by USTOA – US Travel Operators Association – to a promotion in the US to encourage people to holiday. Why mention it? Because why don’t we have something like it here?

If you are in one of these two groups then Tourism Ireland is targeting you to visit Ireland this Autumn. The fun-lovers are called “social energisers” and are young. The other group – the “culturally curious” – are older and interested in exploring new sights and heritage sites.

The British market is the most important one for Irish tourism. You will already have seen half-page and full page adverts in the press encouraging you to jump into Ireland for your summer holidays this year.

As part of the Jump into Ireland campaign, Tourism Ireland is building on its 2012 campaign of getting us to visit Northern Ireland. Last year it was all about the Titanic centenary. This year the province has another big event to celebrate; the fact that Londonderry is the first ever UK capital of culture.

When you were a kid did you ever put a message in a bottle and hurl it off a beach, a ship or a cliff top? I did and months later, I got a letter from the girl who found it. The same has happened to a lad in Waterford, Ireland called Oisin Millea.

Ewe celebrating St Patrick’s Day? Even a flock of sheep in Scotland wants to be ‘seen in green’ this weekend!
 

Whilst we have had a pile of bad news about the UK in the last week, Ireland has been pushing their country as hard as they can to persuade us to go there. Almost daily press releases arrive showing that Ireland is featuring in more TV programmes. It all illustrates the benefits, the appeal and the ease with which you can spend holidays or shortbreaks there.

It seems that Irish golfers – and in particular Northern Irish golfers – have given the province the amount of publicity that tourism officials dream about. Having three players who have won majors has made commentators wonder what is in the water. Which vitamins are they on? Are Northern Irish courses the best breeding grounds for new champions?
Whatever it is Tourism Ireland has launched a £1.8 million campaign to persuade us to visit Ireland, not just the north, and to sample their courses.

This year the Irish seem to have been working overtime in trying to persuade us to visit them. Not only has the government lowered the APD duty and introduced a lower VAT rate for tourism related businesses, Tourism Ireland has launched an innovative competition on Twitter and Facebook.

It’s not even St Patrick’s Day yet but the Irish will be all over out TV screens, radio stations and websites as they try and persuade us that we should have our holidays and short breaks with them this year. Depending on and ports have links. And it all starts today.

Both the UK and Ireland have identified the importance of the USA as a source of visitors. New York has more flights to the UK and Ireland than any other destination in the country. Both Visit Britain and Tourism Ireland have offices in New York. Why, then, was there so little representation from either country at the New York Times Travel Show?

Earlier today, Tourism Ireland held the first of a number of briefing sessions to tell the Irish travel market what it planned to do over the next few years. Top of the list is to encourage more Britons to holiday in Ireland. Britons make up 50% of all visitors and 40% of all the tourism revenue to the island of Ireland but in 2009 a lot of us stayed away.
Why?

Last Summer all those holiday destinations where they had the euro didn’t do quite as well as they expected. Because the pound was weak against it, we chose areas with different currencies that had not declined as much or where we felt we got better value for money. Turkey and Egypt spring to mind.
Ireland suffered despite a campaign last May/June to get us there. !5% fewer Brits went there last year and since 50% of tourists to Ireland come from the UK it is a vital market to them. Now that the pound has strengthened against the euro will we be more likely to visit Ireland again?

No this isn’t the heroics of airmen in 1940, this is what Tourism Ireland has called their campaign on persuading us to visit Ireland in 2010. And they are putting their money where their mouths are. They will be spending nearly €13 million, (say £11.5 million) to get us to go there. And that doesn’t including smaller sums that Dublin and other places might spend.

This is a big campaign by any standards and one factor surely behind it is the downturn that Ireland suffered during 2009. But Ireland has a number of hurdles to overcome not the least of which is how expensive Ireland has become over the years. Dublin is now seen as more expensive than London so to address that head on is a fairly brave affair. One of the key themes of the advertising that will hit us just after Christmas is a price led campaign stressing value for money.