Fourteen Irish tourism companies, including O’Brien Line Ferries and Shannon Ferries, have joined Tourism Ireland at the British Tourism and Travel Show this week.
The show at the NEC in Birmingham is an annual event for the travel trade in Britain,attracting nearly 3,000 coach tour operators and group travel organisers, including leading travel companies like British Airways Holidays, Coachholidays.com and JacTravel.
The two-day event provides a valuable opportunity for the participating companies from Ireland to meet, and do business with, key players in the British travel trade.
Julie Wakley, Tourism Ireland’s deputy head of Great Britain, said, “Great Britain is the largest market for tourism to Ireland and we were pleased to see visitor numbers increase by +11% in 2016, an extra 377,200 British visitors compared with 2015. Our presence at this year’s show is just one element of Tourism Ireland’s programme of activity with the travel trade. Our aim is to enthuse the British travel trade, including online and traditional travel agents and tour operators, so they feature more County Clare and Ireland holidays in their programmes for 2017.”
A native of Ennis, Colin McGann has been editor of The Clare Champion since August 2020. Former editor of The Clare People, he is a journalism and communications graduate of Dublin Institute of Technology.