Tourism Ireland, the official tourism promotion organisation for the island of Ireland, has agreed a marketing deal with London Irish in the Aviva Premiership.
Tourism Ireland’s role is to grow overseas tourism revenue and visitor numbers to the island of Ireland. They run the ireland.com website and work with Fáilte Ireland and Discover Northern Ireland to promote visitor numbers and activities here from a range of international markets.
No details have emerged yet on what the partnership will entail but it is hoped that there will be specific sporting themes and packages to capture people who are clearly interested in rugby. Promotion of the soon to launch museum at Thomond Park and specific match packages around European Rugby Champions’ Cup weekends should also be part of what the two organisations build playing to each others strengths.
London Irish grew their attendance last season by 50% at the Madjeski Stadium in Reading and were the fifth best supported team in the top flight, ahead of teams like Bath, Gloucester and London Wasps.
“As the premier Irish sports brand in the UK, we are proud that Tourism Ireland has chosen London Irish as a marketing partner,” said London Irish Commercial Director, Jim O’Toole.
“This is a mutually beneficial partnership for both organisations and we look forward to working with Tourism Ireland on joint promotional marketing campaigns across the season.”
“Our partnership will enable us to work with London Irish on marketing initiatives to raise our brand profile amongst the London Irish audience and what we do across the whole of the UK,” added a spokesperson for Tourism Ireland.
The theme of Irish tourism outreach at present is focused on specific groups and it would appear to be the ‘social energisers’ that are being targeted here. We know that there is plenty to do around sport in Ireland, and that it has featured less prominently in tourism initiatives than might be justified even by referencing its dominant role in the Gathering. It is hoped that this project with London Irish will deliver real results that can see its importance rise further.
London Irish is making sure it plays to it’s strong heritage having also signed a marketing partnership with Setanta Sports in Ireland where it is the focus of promotional activity around the broadcaster’s coverage through BT Sport of the Aviva Premiership and European top flight action.
Sport for Business, together with our official travel partner Aer Lingus, will host our December Members’ Round Table event on Sports Tourism. Contact us today if you would like to know more about the areas we will cover or if you want to be part of the discussion.
