Ireland is a country with a population of just under six million and a tremendous appetite for travel. According to economic experts, the country is coming out of recession and now with the recent arrival of large American conglomerates to the country due to tax incentives, unemployment is down and people have disposable income to spend on holidays.
The Holiday World Show, now in its 25th year, provided a cost-effective opportunity to connect with travel and trade consumers to promote Sri Lanka’s travel and tourism products across Ireland.
Since attending the event in January 2015, Sri Lanka Tourism recorded a 15.6% growth in the Irish market with 5,970 visitors coming to the country in 2015.
This year Sri Lanka Tourism’s representative in London attended the Holiday World Show for consumers and trade in Dublin, Ireland for the third consecutive time to showcase its tourist attractions.Attending the Dublin Consumer Fair enabled Sri Lanka Tourism to reach more than 41,000 potential Irish consumers to create awareness about the destination. The exhibition was attended by almost 775 travel and tourism professionals, representing more than 103 different countries.
This year’s Holiday Show attracted 41,900 visitors and 541 exhibitors.
Eoghan Corry, an Irish journalist and author regarded as the most extensively journeyed travel writer in Ireland who visited Sri Lanka in 2015 under a special journalist program, in a two-page article in Travel Extra magazine, highlighted the cultural side of Sri Lanka through images of dancers walking across hot coals in Kandy, people on top of Sigiriya, a turtle sanctuary and an elephant bath at Pinnawala. A copy of the magazine was given to all those who came to the show.
During the four-day show, the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Board managed to have meetings with large numbers of trade partners and journalists. Meetings were held with journalists with the view of arranging individual trips or media familiarisation trips to gain the maximum publicity for the destination in the Irish market.
Sri Lanka Travel Feneteko