News Stories

Job Search

Events

Back to News »

IrishTourism Web Visits Grow By 34%

CategoryBusiness

DateMonday, April 12, 2010

AuthorS K

IrishTourism WebVisits Grow By 34%

DiscoverIreland.com Web Visitors Increase by A Third in 2009

Tourism Ireland's suite of international websites attracted a record 13 Million visitors in 2009 - an increase of more than 34% on 2008 figures. DiscoverIreland.com is a gateway to 41 different websites which provide potential holidaymakers on every continent with information on Ireland in 19 different languages.

The 41 sites feature information mined from a database of approximately 30,000 tourism products, and have information on accommodation, festivals, activities, attractions and events, which are updated on a daily basis to ensure they are a dynamic and comprehensive source of information for overseas tourists.

The‘Things to See and Do' was the most viewed section.Returning visitors increased particularly in December, mainly thanks to online Advent Calendar campaigns by Tourism Ireland across Mainland Europe.

Brian Harte, Tourism Ireland's Head of eMarketing (pictured) said: "Tourism Ireland has increased its digital marketing activity across the world and we now invest approximately 27% of our total marketing budget online.

"We are also continually enhancing our website to increase its effectiveness in marketing the island of Ireland as a premier holiday destination and as a platform to help our industry partners ‘close the sale'.

"While the global economic downturn has certainly impacted on Irish tourism, this record number of visits is most encouraging and illustrates a continued strong interested in the island of Ireland, despite the challenging environment", said Harte

The German site (shown below) performed particularly well, with visits growing by more than 49%.