Flights from Cork to the US will provide a huge opportunity to attract business tourists to the south-west region, according to Fáilte Ireland.

Tourism chiefs will aggressively market the Cork and wider region to American and Canadian cities in order to capitalise on the first transatlantic flights this summer.

The airline poised to launch low-cost flights from Ireland to America next summer has confirmed it is considering landing at secondary US airports — each up to 100km from Boston and New York, respectively — to keep costs down.