merrion street

Minister Paschal Donohoe with Tourism Ireland CEO Niall Gibbons

Tourism Minister Paschal Donohoe and Tourism Ireland today launched an €11 million promotional campaign, to boost late-season travel to Ireland from around the world. The September to December period usually yields as much as 30% of Ireland’s annual overseas tourism business.

The campaign will highlight the many festivals and events taking place right around the island this autumn – from the Dublin Festival Season (which includes Tiger Dublin Fringefest, the Dublin Theatre Festival, Open House Dublin and the Bram Stoker Festival), to Culture Night, the Belfast Festival at Queens, Wexford Festival Opera, Savour Kilkenny Food Festival, Cork Jazz Festival and the Galway International Oyster and Seafood Festival.

The Minister said:

Working to keep tourist numbers up, outside the traditional travel period of the summer months, is key to securing jobs in the industry all year round and building on our successes to date. Tourism Ireland’s autumn campaign will target markets from as close as Britain and as far away as Australia, China and India through a range of different media. By working with our airline and ferry partners and assisting media and bloggers to come and explore the Wild Atlantic Way and elsewhere, we can continue to reach around the world with the message that Ireland offers an excellent year-round experience for tourists. This campaign, which places a firm focus on the arts and our rich heritage, aims to entice the ‘culturally curious’, while extensive online marketing endeavours to turn ‘lookers into bookers’. I will be travelling to Boston later this month to attend the iFest and the Jump into Ireland events, to see at first-hand how promotions such as these operate and showcase Ireland to the rest of the world.