Iconic landmarks go green for St Patrick’s Day
The annual “greening” of international landmarks will begin a major €28 million spring promotional drive by Tourism Ireland in an attempt to restore overseas tourism.
Tourism Ireland chief executive Niall Gibbons said: “Over 70 million people around the world claim links with the island of Ireland and St Patrick’s Day is a truly unique opportunity to reconnect them with their heritage and to showcase our wonderful tourism product to a huge global audience.”
He said: “Our message this year is there has never been a better time to visit the island of Ireland, with better-than-ever value from industry partners here and great things to do and see.”
Tourism Ireland’s initiatives to win back the all-important British market include live broadcasts from the Dublin St Patrick’s Day parade and interviews with celebrities such as Roddy Doyle which are to be syndicated to regional radio and TV channels.
Spring advertising campaigns are also to begin in Continental Europe and the United States while Tourism Ireland will be supporting the Beijing “Ireland Festival” and Shanghai “Le Chéile Irish Festival” held on Nanjing Road, the city’s most famous pedestrian street.
Outgoing tourism minister Mary Hannifin said: “With the kind of creativity and energy Tourism Ireland have shown in their St Patrick’s programme, we will see a return to growth from all of our major overseas markets this year,”
However the Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) was yesterday turning their attention to the incoming government launching its election campaign with a four-point plan calling for political parties to commit to decisive action to support Irish tourism as one of the country’s largest employers.
The four-point plan, A Strategy for Job Creation and Economic Growth, calls for effective marketing of Ireland abroad, greater cost competitiveness, appropriate financial support for tourism businesses from the banking industry and the removal of excess hotel capacity to ensure the overall viability of the sector.
Outlining the plan, IHF president Paul Gallagher said: “Since 2007, overseas visitors have dropped by 2.2 million per annum, resulting in lost revenues of €1.7 billion. Despite this catastrophic drop, tourism still offers the economy enormous untapped potential to play a significant role in Ireland’s recovery — provided we have the right recovery strategy in place. This needs to be backed up by strong political leadership.
“We’re calling on the main political parties to commit to a coordinated approach to tourism that bolsters Ireland as a leading destination for overseas visitors. We believe this would generate up to 20,000 jobs in tourism businesses.”
