This month has certainly been a busy month for Irish Tourism with Tourism Ireland accepting two awards in Germany. Tourism Ireland attended the accolade at ITB in Berlin last week to accept their first award for Expedia’s ‘Campaign of the year’.
This ties in with how Tourism Ireland recently launched a new strategy to boost figures of those planning a vacation in Ireland from Germany, setting out targets which will see the island of Ireland welcome 800,000 German visitors per year by 2021.
Last Autumn, Tourism Ireland teamed up with Expedia to grow visitor numbers of those planning a trip to Ireland and specifically Dublin during the shoulder and off-season months. The campaign ran for 6 weeks across Britain, the United States and key mainland Europe markets including Germany. This campaign was a huge success including both video and online advertising. The campaigns success spoke for itself with double digit increases in passenger and room demands in all markets during the campaign period.
Finola O’Mahony Tourism Ireland’s Head of Europe travelled to Berlin to accept the award on behalf of Tourism Ireland. On the night she said “We are delighted that our campaign with Expedia worked so well and that it has been recognised as Expedia’s campaign of the year”.
The second award was accepted by Zoe Redmond on behalf of Tourism Ireland for being voted the second best tourism board in Germany at the annual TPR awards.
This is not a first for Tourism Ireland as this is the 14th year in a row that they have been in the top ten amongst tourist boards represented in Germany. This award was evaluated under the following criteria; product knowledge, comprehensive replies to enquiries, organisational skills and creativity.
Zoe Redmond Tourism Ireland’s manager of Central Europe spoke of behalf of Tourism Ireland when she said “We are delighted to have been voted number two tourist board once again this year by the jury of German journalists. We are constantly looking at new and engaging ways of highlighted the island of Ireland to the media here in Germany – so we are particularly honoured to receive this weekend”
Overall it has been a very successful year for Tourism Ireland and it is great to see a growing interest in our country.