Tourism Ireland invited a group of top Swiss travel writers to explore Mayo and the Wild Atlantic Way this week. They were here to experience some of what Ireland has to offer, including our newest visitor experience, the Wild Atlantic Way – and to then inspire their readers to come and discover it for themselves.
Gian Gregori, Tourism Ireland Switzerland, said: “Tourism Ireland was delighted to invite this group of influential journalists to Mayo and the west of Ireland. Seeing is believing – so fact-finding visits like this are an extremely important element of our publicity and PR programme in Switzerland; they are a really effective way for us to get positive exposure for Ireland through the media, helping us to showcase Mayo and the beautiful Wild Atlantic Way to thousands of potential Swiss holidaymakers.”
Further promotion is also being carried out in Germany where almost 700,000 German commuters have been seeing ads for the west of Ireland on large illuminated posters at bus and tram stops in the cities of Cologne and Düsseldorf. And, an additional 700,000 Germans have been seeing Ireland ads online – on popular travel and news websites, as well as on Facebook and on the iPad edition of Marco Polo, an online travel guide in Germany.
Tourism Ireland teamed up with Germanwings, Ireland West Airport Knock, and Dublin Airport – to highlight great airfares to Knock on flights from Cologne. Seven hundred poster ads have been prominently displayed in the two cities of Cologne and Düsseldorf, grabbing the attention of commuters with attractive airfares and photos of the Wild Atlantic Way – reminding them why they should put the island of Ireland on their holiday wish-list for 2014. The campaign also includes a specially-created page on the website of Germanwings.
Germany is one of our ‘top four’ tourism markets, delivering about 480,000 visitors to the island of Ireland last year. Zoë Redmond, Tourism Ireland’s manager for Central Europe, said this week: “2013 was a record year for German visitors to Ireland and we are undertaking an extensive programme of promotions throughout 2014, to keep the momentum going and build on that growth. Co-operative campaigns, like this one with Germanwings and Ireland West Airport Knock, are an important element of our programme to boost travel to the island of Ireland.”
