CD-Traveller would like to wish all our Irish readers a very Happy St Paddy’s Day!

The British market is the most important one for Irish tourism. You will already have seen half-page and full page adverts in the press encouraging you to jump into Ireland for your summer holidays this year.

As part of the Jump into Ireland campaign, Tourism Ireland is building on its 2012 campaign of getting us to visit Northern Ireland. Last year it was all about the Titanic centenary. This year the province has another big event to celebrate; the fact that Londonderry is the first ever UK capital of culture.

German Tourist Board promotion plans for UK market in 2013

When you were a kid did you ever put a message in a bottle and hurl it off a beach, a ship or a cliff top? I did and months later, I got a letter from the girl who found it. The same has happened to a lad in Waterford, Ireland called Oisin Millea.

Travel journalist, Robin Nowacki, has written on travel destinations from Mexico to the Maldives for both consumer and trade publications. Here he shares some of his travel highlights, exclusively with CD-Traveller readers

Croatia has welcomed 241,443 British visitors so far this year, a boost of 23 per cent compared to the same period in 2011

UK visitors return to Tunisia in record numbers

As the first event of the Olympics gets under way today, (women’s football in Cardiff) lots of countries are using the opportunity –whilst their athletes are here – to persuade us to holiday with them after its over. Not so Ireland.

Earlier this week the UK’s Immigration Minister, Damian Green, appeared before the British parliament’s Home Affairs Committee to answer questions about queues at passport control in Heathrow Airport

Ewe celebrating St Patrick’s Day? Even a flock of sheep in Scotland wants to be ‘seen in green’ this weekend!
 

Dublin will be going green on St Patrick’s Day. Expect parades, parties and lots of fun , writes Megan Gates

Known as the city of tribes or the cultural heart of Ireland, Galway has more arts organisations based in the city than any other city of comparable size in the world and is the home of one of the most prestigious – the Galway Arts Festival which takes place each July.

The CD-Traveller team share their top 2011 travel experiences and look at the top spots for 2012

Darren Keating, winner of Great Hotels of the World’s recent Insider’s Guide competition, tells us how to have the perfect ‘Dub’ day in Dublin’s fair city

We understand that many of you will be struggling to find things to do with your kids today, as a result of the strikes in many schools across the country. Here’s a few fab ideas…

Handlebars is a cold weather goat. Or may have been since he hasn’t been seen for a while. But there are others like him. He is a magnificent six or seven year old goat with truly threatening horns that lives in the picturesque Irish solitude near the Mulranny Park Hotel.

Ireland could be on the brink of a boom in tourism thanks to a brand new Bollywood blockbuster.

CD-Traveller mentioned a little while ago that British visitors were returning to the US after declining numbers over the last few years. One of the reasons we go is for the appeal of its heritage, according to a study recently released by their government.

Whilst we have had a pile of bad news about the UK in the last week, Ireland has been pushing their country as hard as they can to persuade us to go there. Almost daily press releases arrive showing that Ireland is featuring in more TV programmes. It all illustrates the benefits, the appeal and the ease with which you can spend holidays or shortbreaks there.

This year the Irish seem to have been working overtime in trying to persuade us to visit them. Not only has the government lowered the APD duty and introduced a lower VAT rate for tourism related businesses, Tourism Ireland has launched an innovative competition on Twitter and Facebook.

With the budget less than a fortnight away the travel trade is boosting its attack on how high APD is and how damaging it could be for jobs and the economy if it stays at its high level. They have been boosted in that one of the few countries in Western Europe to retain such a tax has got rid of it. Ireland has removed it because it was seeing reduced tourism coming into Ireland and fewer air passengers both of which meant the tax was not raising net money but costing the economy instead. Will George Osborne, the Chancellor, take heed?

Last Summer all those holiday destinations where they had the euro didn’t do quite as well as they expected. Because the pound was weak against it, we chose areas with different currencies that had not declined as much or where we felt we got better value for money. Turkey and Egypt spring to mind.
Ireland suffered despite a campaign last May/June to get us there. !5% fewer Brits went there last year and since 50% of tourists to Ireland come from the UK it is a vital market to them. Now that the pound has strengthened against the euro will we be more likely to visit Ireland again?

Lawrence Bate, director of Tourism Ireland in Great Britain, spoke to CD Traveller about his love of South Korea, loyalty to Lonely Planet and, of course, the Emerald Isle

Last November there was a further increase in the Air Passenger Duty (APD) we UK based flyers pay. Next November it will go up yet again. In Ireland a similar tax is blamed by Ryanair for a substantial fall in the number of people visiting there and its decision to maintain quite so many planes at Dublin. It has concerned some countries that their tourism is being affected so the Netherlands has abolished the tax.
The UK is one of the most heavily taxed, if not the most heavily one for airline flights. But it doesn’t only hit people in the UK. Because of the high cost, overseas countries that rely on tourism for substantial national income are worried we won’t travel there.

No this isn’t the heroics of airmen in 1940, this is what Tourism Ireland has called their campaign on persuading us to visit Ireland in 2010. And they are putting their money where their mouths are. They will be spending nearly €13 million, (say £11.5 million) to get us to go there. And that doesn’t including smaller sums that Dublin and other places might spend.

This is a big campaign by any standards and one factor surely behind it is the downturn that Ireland suffered during 2009. But Ireland has a number of hurdles to overcome not the least of which is how expensive Ireland has become over the years. Dublin is now seen as more expensive than London so to address that head on is a fairly brave affair. One of the key themes of the advertising that will hit us just after Christmas is a price led campaign stressing value for money.

Every August, some 20,000 tourists flock to the town of Bunol (in the Valencia region of Spain) to hurl large, red squishy tomatoes at one another. La Tomatina – the world’s largest vegetable fight – is a full blown fiesta and in the week building up to the battle, Bunol is filled with fireworks, food, street parades and parties. However the undisputed highlight of the festival is the tomato fight which takes place between 11am and 1pm on the last Wednesday in August.

Traditionally, Irish hospitality has been famous for making you feel right at home. Good company, good conversation and a big welcome. But now that is being questioned and by an Irishman to boot.