Sri Lanka Tourism attended the Holiday World Show for consumers and trade in Dublin, Ireland for the fifth time. Ireland is a country with a population of just over 4.7million and a tremendous appetite for travel that shows no sign of declining. Since attending the holiday show in January last year, we have had a 23.9% growth in the Irish market with 9806 visitors coming to SL in 2017.

The Holiday World Show, now in their 27th year, provided a cost-effective opportunity to connect face-to-face with the trade and travel hungry consumers to promote our travel and tourism products to consumers across Ireland. This is the only show in Ireland where one can meet more than 500 travel professionals from 50 countries. Visitors had the opportunity to experience the locations that were on offer and have first hand advice from the travel professionals.

The exhibition was attended by over 750 travel and tourism professionals, representing more than 50 different countries/tourist boards. During this year’s Holiday Show, 41,433 visitors including trade and public attended and 584 exhibitors also participated. During the show, SLTPB managed to disseminate a large number of Sri Lanka themed/specific brochures and fact sheets.

During the three-day show, SLTPB managed to have meetings with large numbers of trade partners as well. Goody bags containing Sri Lankan gifts were presented to few leading Irish tour operators for their efforts. Among them were Go Hop, Insight Vacations and GTI Travel Specialists.

Meetings were held with the following journalists in view of arranging individual trips or a media FAM to get the maximum publicity for the destination in the Irish market. Discussions were held with Four Monkeys Media broadcaster and writer David Gordon, RTE TV Channel Producer Rebecca Brady, Bride and Vow Mag Julian Bolger, Sunday Independent Associate Editor Shauna McCrudden, Irish Times freelance journalist Jamie Ball, Travel Talk travel writer Isobel Conway, The Novel Traveller freelance journalist Michelle Johnson, Various Publications freelance journalist Conor Power.

On the opening day, Nalin Perera from SLTPB represented Sri Lanka at the opening ceremony of the Holiday World Show. The chief guest at the opening was Minister of Transport, Tourism and Sport in Ireland Shane Ross TD and Irish Travel Agents Association President Cormac Meehan.

After the opening ceremony, as a result of the request made by the UK office, SLTPB organised a meeting with the VIP’s to brief them on the progress of Sri Lankan tourism in the Irish market and their vision for the future. The Minister was very pleased with the 23.9% growth that we have achieved and requested us to assist them to bring visitors from Sri Lanka to Ireland. Two very special Sri Lankan gifts were presented by Nalin Perera to Minister of Transport, Tourism and Sport in Ireland Shane Ross TD and to Business Exhibitions Ltd Sales Director Maureen Ledwith, which was the company behind the Holiday World exhibition with the presence of the Irish Travel Agents Association President Cormac Meehan.

Sunday Independent is the most popular newspaper in Ireland with the highest circulation. Mary O’Sullivan is the Travel Editor at Sunday Independent who has been to Sri Lanka on a FAM and over the last few years, we have had journalists from the newspaper visiting the destination. As such, after the recent trip in November 2017 by Marsterson, an extra feature was published in the show guide on Sri Lanka which extended extra publicity for the destination.

Eoghan Corry is an international award winning Irish journalist and Editor of Travel Extra, who is regarded as the most extensively journeyed travel writer in Ireland; he visited SL in 2015 with the journalist FAM. Free travel and tourism seminars titled  ‘Let’s talk Travel” were conducted by him at the show. In one of his seminars, he highlighted Sri Lanka as one of the best destinations to travel in 2018. In recognition of his efforts in promoting the destination in the Irish market, a special Sri Lankan gift was presented to him.

This year, Trail Finders highlighted Sri Lanka very prominently. Their competition at the show was a holiday to Sri Lanka and a very special offer package was promoted through their large screen at the show. Few other tour operators also had special offers to Sri Lanka which were highlighted very prominently at the show through various leaflets.

The leading economists in Ireland have confirmed that the Irish economy is booming again with the unemployment rate expected to dip below 5.5% this year and GDP forecast to grow by around 4%.

The Irish outbound travel market is one of the strongest in Europe. Increased purchasing power and the rising standards of living have resulted in a sharp increase in travel abroad and a growth in tourist expenditure. Geographical proximity and the strong ethnic ties have made the UK, Spanish Islands and the Mediterranean as the main elements of growth. But now Irish travellers and consumers have started looking further afield for their travels and adventures and have focused on areas such as the Far East and the Indian Ocean.

According to the Central Statistics Office in Ireland, there was an increase of 7.2% in the number of overseas trips made by the Irish residents to other countries in 2017 to 7.9 million. With the arrival of the large companies into the country due to the tax incentives and with the low unemployment rate, people have disposable income to spend on holidays as in pre-recession times.

Meetings were also held with large to medium sized, very high profile operators with the view of promoting the destination and arranging a FAM. Key travel companies such as GTI Travel specialists, Travel Mood, Insight vacations Ireland, CTM Travel Management, Trail Finders, Budget travel, Club Travel, Follow the Camino, Go Hop and Sunway also participated at this fair.

Source : http://www.ft.lk/travel-tourism/Holiday-World-Show-2018-in-Dublin-Ireland/27-650153