Fifty Irish tourism enterprises, including Mayo County Council, got together at the Gresham Hotel in Dublin, for an innovative workshop organised by Tourism Ireland and Fáilte Ireland. The event – titled “Have you a story to tell?” – explored how tourism businesses around the country could generate more international publicity and social media exposure for themselves, and for Ireland, and ultimately increase overseas tourism business in 2016 and beyond.
Publicity is an extremely powerful and effective way of promoting Mayo and Ireland and reaching potential holidaymakers around the world, so Tourism Ireland aims to generate as much positive coverage as possible for Ireland, by maintaining regular contact with more than 20,000 influential media contacts around the globe. Already in the first nine months of this year, Tourism Ireland has generated more than 7,500 good news stories about the island of Ireland in the international media, worth an estimated €263 million (if the organisation were to buy the equivalent media space or airtime ).
Irish tourism enterprises and the experiences they offer are at the core of Tourism Ireland’s message. Siobhán McManamy, Tourism Ireland’s head of co-operative marketing, said: “Tourism Ireland aims to keep the island of Ireland in the news around the world, through a constant, steady, flow of good news stories about Ireland. ‘New news’ provided by our partners around the country is the backbone of our publicity efforts overseas. It’s really important that those partners keep us informed and updated on new and interesting stories from their areas. Our “Have you a story to tell?” workshop was designed to help our partners become more involved in our PR opportunities overseas – which include press events, e-newsletters, media visits, our online media centre, Facebook and Twitter – so they get to tell their unique stories to as many people as possible worldwide.”
