Tourism Ireland says turning landmarks green for Paddy's Day is worth €10m in free publicity

TOURISM IRELAND BELIEVES turning landmarks around the world green for St Patrick’s Day is worth €10 million in free publicity.

The state agency, which is responsible for marketing Ireland as a holiday destination overseas, launched its eighth annual ‘global greening’ initiative today, where 92 sites around the world have so far confirmed to be coloured by green lights on 17 March.

When asked by Fora how much ‘global greening’ is worth in terms of additional visitor spend, the body’s chief executive Niall Gibbons, said it was “impossible to tell” how many visitors the campaign alone brings to the island.

However, he said “in terms of the PR value, we would estimate that it is worth at least €10 million” annually.

This figure is roughly based on how much it would cost to pay for advertising slots in international newspapers and television channels.

Gibbons said: “By way of example, both ABC and NBC have given it extensive coverage over in the United States. NBC gave it a 30-second slot. To buy a 30-second slot on NBC would cost you about €2.5 million.”

Tourism Ireland CEO Niall Gibbons

He noted that in the UK press – where it is ”difficult to get St Patrick’s (Day) coverage in general” – photos of green sites have been featured on the online version of conservative newspapers like The Times and The Daily Telegraph.

“That’s publicity that money just can’t buy,” he said.

Spend

Last year, Tourism Ireland spent about €25,000 on the campaign. Gibbons said the bulk went on paying for green filters and promotional photography.

So far, the agency has spent €8,500 on the 2017 campaign. It is expected that the total spend will match last year’s figure as there are still a number of buildings that have yet to confirm they will take part in the programme.

There are 28 sites that will go green for the first time this year, including the One World Trade Centre in New York and City Hall in London. An Ethiopian Airlines Airbus A350 jet in Addis Ababa will also be coloured green to mark Ireland’s national holiday.

Mock-up of a green One World Trade Centre

Gibbons said Tourism Ireland has “a long hit list” of sites it would like to turn green. He said the criteria for turning a building green is that it ”has to be something iconic”.

“If it has some connection to the diaspora, it makes it really much more powerful,” he said.

Brexit meetings

Minister for Tourism Shane Ross, who was at the ‘greening’ launch with the Minister of State for the Diaspora Joe McHugh, said “virtually every minister” will travel abroad on St Patrick’s Day.

Separately, Ross said he has “no proposals” to change the tourism sector’s preferential 9% VAT rate – although he failed to commit to the reduced rate when he spoke to a gathering of hospitality bigwigs at the Irish Tourism Awards last week.

At that the awards ceremony, the chairman of the Irish Tourist Industry Confederation (ITIC), Paul Gallagher, called on the minister to sit down with him to hammer out a “cohesive plan to deal with the significant problems” that could come from a hard Brexit.

Ross said his department will “certainly be meeting with (ITIC) and I think they’ve been at various meeting we’ve been at on a global basis. We’re quite happy to do that. We’ll be having continuous conferences (on Breixt) to which everybody is invited.”

So far, the tourism department has taken part in one Brexit conference which took place in Dundalk two weeks ago.