Mid-West Florida Limerick Spotlight at the Fifth Annual Global Travel Marketplace

Mid-West Florida Limerick Spotlight at the fifth annual Global Travel Marketplace – Pictured is Peggy Freeman and Hillarie McGuinness, both Tourism Ireland (left); Brian Nevin, Shannon Heritage (second right); and Irish tourism companies, at GTM in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Mid-West Florida Limerick Spotlight at the fifth annual Global Travel Marketplace

Eight tourism companies from Ireland, including Shannon Heritage, travelled to Fort Lauderdale in Florida, to join Tourism Ireland at the fifth annual Global Travel Marketplace (GTM).

The busy, three-day event involves a programme of bespoke one-to-one appointments and networking sessions – providing a wonderful opportunity for the tourism enterprises from Ireland to meet, and do business with, top-producing travel advisors from North America, ensuring the island of Ireland is ‘top of mind’ for them when recommending destinations to their clients.

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Tourism Ireland is the organisation responsible for promoting the island of Ireland overseas as a leading holiday destination. Tourism is the island of Ireland’s largest indigenous industry; responsible for in excess of 4% of GNP in the Republic of Ireland and employing approximately 281,000 people across the island.

Alison Metcalfe, Tourism Ireland’s Head of North America, said: “Our presence at this year’s Global Travel Marketplace in Florida provides another excellent platform to spread the word about the many great things to see and do in Limerick, along with the Wild Atlantic Way and elsewhere around the island of Ireland.”

 “In 2016, we welcomed a record 1.6 million North American visitors to the island of Ireland, worth over €1.3 billion to our economy. Tourism Ireland has prioritised North America for 2017, as a market which offers a strong return on investment, in terms of holiday visitors and expenditure. Our aim is to deliver a +6% increase in visitor numbers and a +9% increase in revenue from North America this year”, she added.

“A number of factors are working in our favour, including more airline seats than ever before, from 20 gateway cities across North America to the island of Ireland, with numerous new flights and expanded services in the pipeline for this year.”

Ireland has seen superb growth in North American visitor numbers so far again this year, with the most recent CSO figures for January to May 2017 showing growth of +23.6% – an extra 126,700 American and Canadian visitors compared with the same five-month period last year. Tourism Ireland is undertaking an extensive programme of targeted promotional activity to keep the momentum going and build on that growth.

To visit the official Tourism Ireland website click here

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