Derry Girls stars, Sharon Horgan and more team up to boost Irish tourism

Irish actors, including Derry Girls stars and Sharon Horgan, have joined Tourism Ireland's €78 million campaign to boost visitors to Ireland.

New ads featuring actors Sharon Horgan (Bad Sisters), as well as Derry Girls' Saoirse Monica Jackson and Jamie-Lee O'Donnell form part of a marketing spend of €78 million to try to restore visitor numbers to pre-pandemic levels.

Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Chief Executive of Tourism Ireland, Niall Gibbons remarked that 2019 saw 11.3 million visitors come to Ireland spending almost €6 billion.

Adding more, he said that films, such as Star Wars and Game of Thrones, have cushioned the initial blow of Covid-19.

Research from the Economic and Social Institute (ESRI) stated that the pandemic, combined with Brexit, made for a particularly damaging time for the Irish economy.

Despite the hard hit to Ireland's economy, tourism in Ireland has experienced quite a huge turnaround since then.

"We're able to piggyback on the back of successes from [Star Wars and Game of Thrones], but success has continued," Mr Gibbon declared.

With Martin McDonagh's The Banshees of Inisherin winning three prizes at this year's Golden Globes and Colin Farrell name-checking Achill Island, Ireland is undoubtedly on the uptick.

Colin Farrell in the film THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN. Photo by Jonathan Hession. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2022 20th Century Studios All Rights Reserved.

Gibbons explains that the new Tourism Ireland ads will be displayed all over the world, beginning on St. Patrick's Day they will be shown in the top four markets of the US, UK, Germany and France. Nearly 70% of all international tourists in Ireland are from these regions.

"There are tens of millions of bed nights still to be sold around the globe. And we can't take it for granted, because the people that came on holidays last year aren't coming again this year. The clock goes back to zero on the 1st of January and we have to do it all again," says Gibbons.

After the widespread travel bans and global lockdowns of Covid-19, it became clear that the hospitality and tourism sectors would become one of the quickest and hardest hit with an all but collapse in revenues.