Courtesy/News Source: tourismireland.com

Tourism Ireland has enlisted the help of five popular travel bloggers to showcase some of our top visitor attractions and experiences to their followers and readers in GB, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Italy.

The bloggers have a really extensive social audience in their respective countries; their blogs alone have a combined monthly readership of over 345,000 and they also have hundreds of thousands of followers on their other social channels, including Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

The bloggers’ itinerary included a Game of Thrones experience at ‘Winterfell’ (aka Castle Ward), as well as Titanic Belfast and a Belfast Food Tour. The group also enjoyed a drive along the Causeway Coastal Route, stopping at the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, the Giant’s Causeway and the Dark Hedges. Tourism Ireland worked closely with Tourism NI to design the itinerary.

Tourism Ireland undertakes a busy publicity programme around the world each year to raise the profile of Northern Ireland – and visits by journalists and social influencers like bloggers and vloggers are a key element of that programme.

Elmagh Killeen, Tourism Ireland’s Brand Manager, said: “The blogs and social media accounts of this group are extremely popular, so their visit is a really good opportunity to showcase Northern Ireland to a wide audience of prospective holidaymakers from GB and Mainland Europe. They are documenting their entire Northern Ireland visit online, sharing their photos and experiences with their followers – inspiring those followers and travellers to come and sample the destination for themselves.”

Tourism Ireland is rolling out its busy autumn campaign right now to boost late-season travel to Northern Ireland from around the world. The September to December period usually yields as much as 30% of our annual overseas tourism business.

The autumn campaign is highlighting the many festivals and events taking place in Northern Ireland this autumn and winter – from the Belfast International Arts Festival to Culture Night, the Banks of the Foyle Halloween Carnival in Londonderry, Belfast Comedy Festival and Cinemagic Belfast.

It incorporates a major focus on city breaks, as well as on attracting visitors to more rural areas over the coming months.

Sarah Dee, Tourism Ireland (front centre), with international travel bloggers at Titanic Belfast.

Notes To Editor

Tourism Ireland is the organisation responsible for promoting Northern Ireland and the island of Ireland overseas as a leading holiday destination.

Tourism is responsible for in excess of 5.2% of GDP in Northern Ireland and supports 61,300 jobs.

In 2016, we welcomed a record 2.1 million overseas visitors to Northern Ireland, delivering revenue of over £543 million.

Tourism Ireland’s international website is www.ireland.com, 29 market sites available in 11 language versions around the world, which attracted about 19.37 million visitors in 2016.