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West Cork is represented at UK tourism show in Birmingham

April 12th, 2016 5:10 PM

By Southern Star Team

Jim Maher, Select Hotels of Ireland with Judith Cassidy of Tourism Ireland and Neil Grant of the Celtic Ross Hotel in Rosscarbery, at the British Tourism and Travel Show. (Photo: Jonathan Hipkiss)

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A total of seventeen Irish tourism companies – including the Celtic Ross Hotel in Rosscarbery – joined Tourism Ireland at the British Tourism and Travel Show, at the NEC in Birmingham recently.

A TOTAL of seventeen Irish tourism companies – including the Celtic Ross Hotel in Rosscarbery – joined Tourism Ireland at the British Tourism and Travel Show, at the NEC in Birmingham recently.

 The British Tourism and Travel Show is an annual event for the travel trade in Britain,  attracting more than 3,000 coach tour operators and group travel organisers, including leading companies like Albatross Travel Group, Expedia.com, First Choice Holidays and JacTravel.

 The two-day event provided a valuable opportunity for the participating companies from Ireland to meet, and do business with, key players in the British travel trade. It encouraged them to introduce Ireland into their programmes for 2016 and beyond, or to extend the programmes in which Ireland already features.

 Vanessa Markey of Tourism Ireland in the UK explained that Great Britain is the largest market for tourism to Ireland. ‘We were pleased to see visitor numbers increase by 12% in 2015, an extra 383,000 British visitors compared with 2014. Tourism Ireland is determined to ensure that tourism growth continues,’ she said. ‘Our presence at this year’s British Tourism and Travel Show is just one element of our programme of activity with the travel trade. Our aim is to enthuse the GB travel trade, including online and traditional travel agents and tour operators, so they feature more island of Ireland holidays in their programmes for 2016.’

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