Hundreds of thousands of Spanish residents are seeing a large billboard ad for Dublin right now as they pass through Plaza del Callao in the centre of Madrid.
Tourism Ireland has teamed up with the tour operating arm of Spanish retailing giant El Corte Inglés for a joint promotional campaign targeting late-season Spanish travellers. As well as the ad in central Madrid, the joint campaign also includes ads in top national newspapers like El País, El Mundo and La Vanguardia, as well as in popular sports newspapers Marca and AS, which have a combined readership of 26 million. Extensive social media activity is under way on the El Corte Inglés platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, which have a combined fan base of 180,000, and email marketing will reach 25,000 customers of El Corte Inglés.
Barbara Wood, Tourism Ireland’s Manager Spain, explained, “Our campaign aims to boost travel to Dublin and Ireland in the last quarter of 2017, taking advantage of late booking trends, as there is still plenty of business to play for. About 21% of all Spanish visitors to Ireland arrive in the off-season or Q4 – a real opportunity to win business for Dublin and Ireland at a time when there is capacity in accommodation and other tourism facilities. Also, Spaniards tend to travel in the latter part of the year due to the high concentration of bank holiday weekends.
“Spain is an important market for Irish tourism; travel by Spaniards to Ireland has grown significantly over the past 15 years – going from just 90,000 Spanish visitors in 2000 to a record 391,000 visitors in 2016. And, the outlook for 2017 is positive, with the latest CSO figures for the January-September period showing growth of over +15%, when compared with the same nine-month period in 2016. Tourism Ireland is determined to ensure that growth continues and we’ve been undertaking a busy programme of promotions right throughout 2017.”
