- 1 United Arab Emirates
- 2 New Zealand
- 3 Ireland
- 4 Iceland
- 5 Singapore
- 6 Rwanda
- 7 Malaysia
- 8 Hong Kong
- 9 Jamaica
- 10 Malta
Ireland has been ranked number three in the world for promoting its tourism image abroad. Only the UAE and New Zealand were ahead in the World Economic Forum’s global Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index 2017.
The biennial report ranked 136 countries, for “effectiveness of marketing and branding to attract tourists”’. Ireland moved from number five in the world, when the index was last compiled in 2015, to number three – ahead of countries including Spain (11), Britain (12), the United States (16), Australia (18) and France (19).
Bottom of the pile were, in order, Nigeria, Kuwait, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Yemen and Venezuela.
Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland, said: “The international tourism marketplace is an extremely competitive one and we are constantly looking at innovative and engaging ways to reach potential holidaymakers, to ensure the island of Ireland to stands out from other destinations.”
Tourism Ireland has almost 3.9m active fans on Facebook and is now the fourth most popular tourism board in the world on the social networking site; it’s the number four tourism board in the world on Twitter, with almost 400,000 followers; and is number three on YouTube, with over 31m views.
Niall Gibbons added: “2016 was a record year for overseas visitors to the island of Ireland, surpassing all previous tourism performance. Right now, Tourism Ireland is rolling out an extensive programme of promotions in key markets around the world to keep that momentum going, highlighting our unique and distinctive holiday experience, how easy it is to get here by air or sea and showcasing great value offers from the tourism industry.”
- See Ireland pages here.
