Tourism Ireland hosts second trade mission in UAE

Destination training workshops will be held in both Dubai and Abu Dhabi and all the UAE travel trade are invited to attend.

This year, four Irish trade partners will be joining Tourism Ireland in promoting Ireland as a holiday destination and their products and services to the UAE travel trade.

They are the g Hotel, a popular and unique boutique hotel located in Galway city; Spa Ireland, a niche, specialist website offering an online and offline booking service for the top spas in Ireland; the Irish National Stud, home to some of Irelands finest thoroughbreds and the only stud farm in Ireland operating as a visitor attraction; and Dublin Tourism, the official tourist board for Dublin.

This will be the second time for The Irish National Stud and Dublin Tourism to participate in Tourism Ireland's trade mission.

Going into their 2nd year of full time representation in the GCC, and noticing a considerable increase in GCC arrivals to Ireland in 2008, Tourism Ireland sees this as an opportunity to further strengthen ties with the local travel trade.

Aiveen Ryan, Key Account Manager for Tourism Ireland GCC, says:

"We have had a good year in 2008, with a 25% increase in visitor arrivals to Ireland from the GCC. We worked hard last year on establishing good business relationships with the local travel trade and look forward strengthening these ties. This mission is an excellent opportunity to do so and introduce our local travel trade partners to our Irish industry suppliers."

Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates operates daily flights to Dublin with very high load factors and will be lending their support by joining Tourism Ireland as partner in hosting the destination training workshops and offering a prize of two return economy class tickets to Dublin. Tourism Ireland will be providing the hotel and ground arrangements as their part of the prize.

Raymond Korban, Etihad Airways' Regional Manager for UAE and Oman, said, "We are proud to announce our sponsorship of this event and boost our close ties with the Irish Tourism Board. Dublin is a key destination on the Etihad global flight network and we are proud to offer daily flights between the UAE and the Irish capital city."