Ireland West Airport focuses on UK

Ireland West Airport has teamed up with Flybe and Tourism Ireland for a major overseas promotional campaign in the UK to promote flights to Ireland West Airport from Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh and grow tourist numbers to the West of Ireland this autumn.

The joint campaign – which will run in Britain during August and September – has a value of almost €250,000, and it is just one element of an extensive promotional programme aimed at boosting travel to the West of Ireland from Great Britain during 2016 and 2017.

The multi-media campaign, which commenced this week, will run across press, online and social media channels.

In total the first phase of the campaign will be viewed by in excess of 13 million people across press, online and social media channels, highlighting the Airport as the central gateway to for the Wild Atlantic Way and the many reasons why the West and North West of Ireland are such wonderful parts of Ireland for tourists to experience.

The marketing effort also includes dedicated email campaigns, promoting the West and North West of Ireland distributed to over 400,000 subscribers to the Flybe newsletter in Birmingham, Edinburgh and Manchester.

Joe Gilmore, Managing Director, Ireland West Airport, welcoming the commencement of this major overseas promotional campaign.

“We are delighted to see fantastic exposure for the Galway region throughout this campaign, highlighting the wonderful attractions and activities available for tourists within a 60 minute drive of the airport when they come to the West,” he said.

“As an island, the importance of convenient, direct, non-stop flights cannot be overstated – they are absolutely critical to achieving growth in inbound tourism,” added Julie Wakely, Tourism Ireland’s Deputy Head of Great Britain.

“Great Britain is the largest market for tourism to the island of Ireland and we have seen excellent growth in British visitor numbers so far again this year, with the most recent CSO figures for January to June showing a +16% increase. We will continue to roll out an extensive programme of promotions in Britain this autumn, to keep the momentum going and boost business in the shoulder and off-peak season,” she concluded.