Ireland: land of sheep, music and castles, castles, castles
1,319 foreign journalists were invited to Ireland last year to sample our tourist attractions. ROSITA BOLAND joins a Fáilte Ireland ‘press trip’ of eight US journalists to get their impressions
NO MATTER HOW cliched we consider it to be, never underestimate the power of an Irish castle as a tourist attraction. This is something I learn during the two days I spend shadowing a Fáilte Ireland “press trip” hosting eight American journalists.
Tourism boards across the world regularly host press trips for members of the international media. They showcase different aspects of what their country has to offer, and each trip is usually aimed at a specific market. This year alone, among the trips Fáilte Ireland will host are those focusing on golf, equestrian holidays, Culture Night in Dublin, food trails in Cork and Kerry, and island-hopping in the west.
It’s last Sunday morning when I join eight American journalists at Dublin’s Conrad Hotel. They have spent the previous few days at a travel writers’ conference. Now, they are being hosted by Fáilte Ireland for a week, on an itinerary that is to take them around iconic visitor highlights of the south west, including Blarney Castle, the Midleton Distillery, the Ring of Kerry, and the Dingle Peninsula.
The journalists on the trip include Patrick Perry, Cynthia Rubin, Patti McCracken, Kathy Mangan, Beverly Burmeier, Carey Sweet and Brooke Morton. The eighth, who is on assignment for a well-known American newspaper, wishes to remain nameless. “Your feature idea is pointless and stupid,” she announces more than once by way of explanation.
Between them, the group, who are mostly freelance journalists, have written for a range of publications including National Geographic Traveller,
Fáilte Ireland doesn’t call these regular events “press trips”. They call them “fam trips” meaning “familiarisation trips”, explains Bernard McMullan of Tourism Ireland in New York – the name used to promote Irish tourism in the US. He is accompanying the journalists for the week with his Dublin-based colleague, Ellen Redmond of Fáilte Ireland. “It sounds less of a junket in the trade than a press trip.”
Last year, Fáilte Ireland hosted 1,319 journalists. The biggest cohort came from Britain, with 165 – reflecting the fact the British represent our biggest tourist numbers – followed by Germany at 106 and the US at 98.
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Instead of joining the press trip, he and fellow journalist Allan Lynch take up Fáilte Ireland's offer of a hire car for the week, and self-guide themselves along roughly the same route. They join us for lunch on Monday at the Farmgate Cafe in Cork's
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