Tourism Ireland leads sales blitz to the United States

26 April, 2024

‘Best of Ireland’ sales mission visits Cleveland, Cincinnati, Minneapolis-Saint Paul and Chicago

Tourism Ireland, together with a delegation of 13 tourism companies from the island of Ireland and four American tour operators, as well as Aer Lingus and Delta, is undertaking a sales blitz to the United States this week.

The ‘Best of Ireland’ sales mission will visit key cities in the United States, including Cleveland, Cincinnati, Minneapolis-Saint Paul and Chicago. The schedule includes a B2B event in each city, featuring interactive presentations to showcase Ireland and the participating companies from Ireland engaging in hundreds of meetings with US travel professionals. It’s a valuable opportunity to inspire and influence the US travel agents, helping to deliver more regional and longer-stay business for Ireland in 2024 and beyond. Tourism Ireland will also be highlighting increased air access from Minneapolis-Saint Paul to Dublin with Aer Lingus and Delta, as well as direct flights from Cleveland and Chicago with Aer Lingus.

Alison Metcalfe, Tourism Ireland’s Head of North America, said: “This week’s ‘Best of Ireland’ sales mission to Cleveland, Cincinnati, Minneapolis-Saint Paul and Chicago provides an excellent platform to connect our tourism partners from Ireland with key US travel professionals – to inform and influence those travel professionals about what the island of Ireland has to offer and, importantly, to encourage them to include the destination in their future programmes and recommend it to their clients. As well as highlighting the increased air access from Minneapolis-Saint Paul to Dublin and direct flights from Cleveland and Chicago, we’ll be shining a spotlight on the many things to see and do, and all that is new and exciting, on a vacation on the island of Ireland in 2024. 

“The United States remains an extremely important market for tourism to the island of Ireland – it’s our most important market in terms of revenue and our second-largest market in terms of visitor numbers. Our visitors from the United States tend to stay longer, spend more and tour extensively around our regions.”

A similar ‘Best of Ireland’ sales mission visited Austin, Dallas, Phoenix and Denver in February.

Representatives from Tourism Ireland and tourism companies from the island of Ireland in Cincinnati, on day two of Tourism Ireland’s ‘Best of Ireland’ sales mission to the United States.