Tourism Ireland to Double Investment In China

Tourism Ireland is doubling its marketing investment in China to €1 million, and will also double its marketing team to 12, over the coming months – to increase Chinese visitor numbers to 200,000 by 2025.

The announcement was made by Tourism Minister Shane Ross ahead of Tourism Ireland’s largest ever sales mission to China, which kicked off on Monday 6 May. A record 26 tourism businesses, as well as five island of Ireland tourism industry leaders, will visit Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shanghai and Beijing this week to meet hundreds of travel agents and tour operators, as well as key airlines and travel journalists.

On the back of last year’s increase of +11% in Chinese visitors to Ireland, and following several years of steady growth, Tourism Ireland is ramping up its investment in China to €1 million as part of the Global Ireland initiative. Under the new strategy, Tourism Ireland will:

Minister Ross said: “I am happy to announce that Tourism Ireland is doubling its marketing budget as part of its growth strategy in China, the world’s fastest-growing outbound travel market. This investment was made possible as a result of the significant additional funding that I allocated to Tourism Ireland in Budget 2019. This will help us deliver on the ambitious targets set for tourism in the Government’s ‘Global Ireland 2025’ initiative. This sets out how we will take Ireland’s global engagement to the next level over the coming years. As part of this, Tourism Ireland, with the support of Fáilte Ireland, will implement its market growth strategies in several new and emerging markets like China.

“Over the last number of years, Tourism Ireland’s strategy has focused on targeting high-spending markets. The sustained increase in revenue from such markets has played a large part in our success in recent years and there is great potential for China to become another success story. Our tourism industry must be ready to react to the changing market profile of visitors to Ireland and, in this respect, Fáilte Ireland has developed a ‘China Ready’ Programme that aims to educate the industry about the opportunities available from that market. I wish Tourism Ireland every success in their sales mission to China this week.”

Niall Gibbons, Chief Executive, Tourism Ireland, said: “Our review of emerging tourism markets confirmed China as a market of considerable opportunity for us. China is the largest outbound travel market in the world and one that Tourism Ireland is committed to growing over the coming years. Last year we welcomed an estimated 100,000 Chinese visitors to the island of Ireland; the introduction of direct flights to Dublin has been a major game-changer and offers a real opportunity for us. Our aim now is to capitalise on the changing travel patterns in China to grow Chinese visitor numbers to 200,000 by 2025 and, in particular, to grow the number of high-end individual Chinese travellers to the island of Ireland.”

In 2018 the island of Ireland welcomed an estimated 100,000 Chinese visitors, up 11% on 2017.