2014 has proven to be a hugely successful year for tourism in Ireland so far and there doesn’t appear to be any signs of this changing as Ireland was named ‘Best destination: Europe” at the Travel Weekly annual Readers Choice Awards in New York.
The award marks a significant boost to tourism in Ireland as it fended of strong competition from some of the bigger European nations such as France, England, Germany, Italy and Spain. The annual award ceremony was organised by the leading weekly newspaper for American travel agents and travel professionals.
Elsewhere, Ireland was also been named the ‘Best Tourism Destination’ at the 2014 GT Tested Awards for the third year in succession. The award was voted for by frequent travellers from the United States and surveyed by Global Traveler magazine.
The most favoured destinations, airlines and other travel-related products of luxury and business travellers were revealed at the Global Traveler awards ceremony in Los Angeles. The popular travel magazine has a circulation of approximately 110,000 with a significant proportion of them having enjoyed a vacation in Ireland.
These two prestigious awards come shortly after Ireland was listed in the Lonely Planet’s Top 10 countries to visit for 2015. Dublin City has also been the focus of numerous positive travel articles in The New York Times over recent weeks.
Niall Gibbons, Tourism Ireland’s CEO, said:
“Travellers nowadays have tremendous choice, which makes it more important than ever for us to ensure the island of Ireland stands out from other destinations – so these awards are really good news, coming at the end of a record year for Irish tourism from the US.”
Tourism Ireland recently revealed its marketing plans for 2015, when it is hoped that visitor figure will exceed the previous record figure of 7.74 million. As things stand, it is anticipated that Ireland will have welcomed 1.2 million visitors from the United States, contributing in excess of US$1 billion to the economy, by the end of 2014.