Tourism Ireland leverages Obama visit

Online Travel Vietnam: Tourism Ireland has stepped up its US marketing drive to coincide with President Barack Obama’s visit to Ireland.

Hundreds of international journalists have been accredited as part of the visit, which is expected to generate huge positive publicity in the US. Tourism Ireland is focused on leveraging the visit to persuade potential visitors from the US, the country's second largest tourism market, to visit the island of Ireland.

The organisation said its marketing strategy in the US differs from the approach taken in Britain to capitalise on the visit of Queen Elizabeth II, where the focus was on cultural, literary, equestrian, gastronomic and sporting themes.

Tourism Ireland leverages Obama visit. Pictured: US President Barack Obama

To celebrate President Obama's Irish ancestry, genealogy has been selected as a key theme of the marketing push in the United States.

As part of the activity, a media news release has been issued to 2,000 broadcast and online media, with video footage embedded featuring an interview with genealogist Fiona Fitzsimmon who has researched President Obama's ancestral heritage in Moneygall.

In addition, interviews with other Ireland-based genealogists and historians have been made available to US radio stations.

A ‘hero spot' on discoverireland.com in the US highlights the presidential itinerary and features strong tourism messages of genealogy and US presidential ancestral links to Ireland, as well as heritage and literary Dublin.

Social media activity includes a competition on Tourism Ireland's US Facebook page which has over 120,000 US fans, which involves naming US presidents with Irish ancestry. Additional presidential-themed wall posts have been increased over the past week.

Tourism Ireland's presidential factsheet, covering previous visits by US Presidents as well the ancestral links to Ireland of 20 US presidents, has been distributed to a wide selection of media contacts throughout the US;

Online ads targeting the Irish diaspora are running on key websites including IrishCentral.com. Full-page ads in Irish-related publications such as Irish Echo and Irish America will be supported by advertorials with literary and genealogy themes. And a special, four-page cover wrap will appear on AM New York today.

"This has been an excellent month for Irish tourism with the announcement by the government of a package of measures to stimulate the tourism sector and now culminating in the second of our two historic visits with President Obama's arrival," said Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland.

"The United States is a tremendously important market for us, second only to Britain in terms of delivering visitor numbers. Our focus is on maximising the potential of this unique occasion and on promoting Ireland as a wonderful holiday destination to the millions of Americans who will come into contact with Ireland in the coming days and weeks."

Source: businessandleadership.com