Reps from 2 tourist hotspots in Kildare represent the county at Flavours of Ireland event in London

38 Irish tourism enterprises, including the Irish National Stud & Gardens and Kildare Village, travelled to London this week, to take part in Flavours of Ireland 2017. Flavours is Tourism Ireland’s annual B2B tourism workshop, now in its 15th year, which saw some 100 representatives of the top inbound tour operators based in Britain come together to do business with the various tourism organisations from Ireland.

Flavours of Ireland aims to grow our share of the huge worldwide travel market. Attended by representatives of top UK inbound tour operators, who are responsible for putting in place the arrangements for holidaymakers to Britain and Ireland from all over the world, this event was an excellent opportunity for the participating tourism providers from Ireland to highlight and sell their product to these important decision-makers and to encourage them to feature Kildare and Ireland in their 2018 holiday programmes.

David Boyce, Tourism Ireland’s Head of Asia, Middle East and UK Inbound, said: “Tourism Ireland is delighted that so many tourism organisations from Ireland and so many of the leading UK inbound tour operators took the time to join us at our Flavours event again this year. We very much welcome the business and networking opportunities it presented. Our aim is to increase awareness of the island of Ireland among these hugely influential tour operators and to help Ireland and our tourism partners secure a greater share of the huge worldwide tourism market.”

David Boyce continued: “Figures issued by the CSO last week confirm that we welcomed over 6.7 million overseas visitors during the January to August period. This represents growth of +2.5% – or 161,800 additional visitors – on the same eight-month period in 2016. We have a really extensive autumn campaign in full swing – aimed at boosting late-season travel to the island of Ireland from around the globe.”