Glen Keen Farm attends worlds largest travel fair in London

A MAJOR tourism push for 2016 is under way this week, as almost 90 Irish tourism businesses - including Glen Keen Farm and Visitor Centre near Louisburgh - join Tourism Ireland at this year’s World Travel Market (WTM) in London. WTM heralds the beginning of Ireland’s promotional drive overseas for the 2016 season.

The Irish companies are engaging in thousands of meetings with British and international tour operators to negotiate and exchange vital contracts for 2016. Organisers estimate that more than £2.5 billion’s (about €3.4 billion’s) worth of business was done at last year’s WTM.

With about 180 countries and regions all vying for business at WTM, Tourism Ireland aims to stand out from the crowd and capture the attention of the global media and travel professionals in attendance. The organisation will highlight Ireland’s unique offerings for potential visitors around the world.

Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland, said: “The large representation of Irish tourism companies at World Travel Market once again this year is extremely welcome - and essential in the highly competitive global marketplace.

“I am really pleased to report that we have seen growth in visitor numbers from all of our markets around the world this year. In fact, the latest CSO figures indicate that we are heading for a record year for Irish tourism in 2015, with almost 6.65 million people arriving during the January to September period - an increase of 12% or almost three-quarters of a million extra overseas visitors when compared to 2014.”

Now in its 36th year, World Travel Market is the largest B2B event in the global travel and tourism calendar, with more than 50,000 travel professionals from around the world and 3,000 international media in attendance.