Ireland has beaten tourism rivals from around Europe and won a major travel award
for the third year in a row in New York.
The country was named “best destination: Europe” at the annual Travel Weekly annual Readers Choice Awards – beating off competition from England, France, Italy, Germany and Spain. Travel Weekly is the leading weekly newspaper for American travel agents and travel professionals.
Around 15,000 of its readers voted in the various categories earlier this year. Now in their 14th year, the Readers Choice Awards represent the “best of the best in travel” according to Travel Weekly.
Ireland also won this award in 2014 and 2015.
Niall Gibbons, Tourism Ireland’s CEO, said: “Travellers nowadays have tremendous choice, which makes it more important than ever for us to ensure the island of Ireland stands out from other destinations – so this award is really good news, coming at the end of another record-breaking year for Irish tourism from the US and as we prepare to kick off another extensive promotional drive in 2017, in this all-important market. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our travel trade partners across the United States – who continue to play a very important role in helping us to continue to grow visitor numbers to Ireland.
He added that 2016 will be the fourth record year in a row for visitor numbers to the island of Ireland from North America. By the end of this year, we will have welcomed about 1.6 million American and Canadian visitors, delivering revenue of €1.4 billion for the economy throughout 2016.”
