Go Travel with Joan, Ask Joan and Road Warrior
​@JoanScalesIT
  • Home
  • Ask Joan
  • Road Warrior
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Articles

Holiday World Show Dublin gets off to a flying start

25/1/2014

0 Comments

 
PictureMaureen Ledwith, Lord Mayor Oisin Quinn and Clare Dunne cut the 25th anniversary cake at the Holiday World Show in Dublin, January 24th, 2014
“The only thing you buy that makes you richer is travel,” said the Lord Mayor Oisin Quinn at the opening of the 25th Holiday World Show in Dublin yesterday. The wet weather encouraged thousands of bargain hunters into the RDS in search of the sun, sand and sea.

Happy smiles began appearing on the faces of travel agents and representatives of the 50 countries exhibiting at the shows as people booked holidays and expressed strong interest in destinations. New exhibitors included Czech Republic, Ionian Islands, Jordan, Korea, Oman, Sri Lanka, Flanders and Kusadasi.

The stand for Newfoundland and St. Johns soon ran out of brochures and stocks had to be replenished as people flocked to hear about the new daily service with Westjet to the Canadian maritime province.

This new service is part of 26 weekly flights to Canada this summer operated by four airlines.  Aer Lingus’s service to Toronto begins in April, Air Canada Rouge in June and Air Transat will operate their usual summer services from Dublin and Shannon to Toronto and Montreal.

Transatlantic holidays are high on the wish lists of visitors and all the US and Canadian stands experienced queues of people wanting to get information and find deals.  The knock on effect of the Gathering means that this year there are more than two million flights to the USA and Canada.

Sun destinations are just as popular with Spain topping the list as usual, last year we made 1,270,000 trips there.  Portugal, Italy and France were all happy with the day but it is in the long haul market where people are showing interest.  Malaysia saw number rising last year and Mexico had increases of 18.6 per cent. 

Clare Dunne, President of the Irish Travel Agents Association said “while people really enjoyed the summer last year, they still want to get off the island. The ending of the Bailout has also made people more optimistic and prepared to spend money on holidays.”

Travel agents have been reporting a very strong start to the year with figures well up on last January.  Some agents are already seeing increases of more than 30 per cent.  Part of this is as a result of the withdrawal from the Irish charter market of the Thomas Cook Group.

The timing of the news last week in the busiest period of the year caused some upset with travel agents.  Thousands of customers had to be found new holidays and rebooked on different itineraries. 

In the home market, the big draw this year will be the Garnde Partenza of the Giro D’Italia which will begin in Belfast on May 9 ending in Dublin on May 11.

Both cities and towns along the route are planning to make the most of the famous cycling race.

Exhibitors for Irish hotels are feeling optimistic for the year and David McGlynn of the McWilliam Park Hotel in Claremorris said they have more bookings in January for the upcoming year than ever before.  Dromoland Castle and refurbished Inn at Dromoland are feeling the benefits of the extra Transatlantic flights with strong bookings. 

The Holiday World Show is on in the RDS today and tomorrow from 11am – 5.30pm.


0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Joan loves to travel, write about, hear about it, see it, talk about it, anything about travel.

    Archives

    July 2018
    April 2017
    March 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    January 2013
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012

    Categories

    All
    Fairy Tree At The Hill Of Tara
    NI2012.com
    Northern Ireland
    Titanic

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos used under Creative Commons from Images_of_Money, torbakhopper, Sean MacEntee, ~ Lone Wadi ~, piropiro3, Capt' Gorgeous, shahin olakara, Robert S. Donovan, Tyler Merbler, dsearls, Edmond Wells, VnGrijl, Andy_Mitchell_UK, Martin Pettitt, abbilder, Rushen!, piet theisohn, markhillary, Moyan_Brenn, Nite_Owl, EaglebrookSchool, GranniesKitchen, Dark Dwarf, davosmith, bigpresh, wellingtonstravel, National Institutes of Health (NIH), dsearls, Marc Wathieu, DncnH, Sean Pritchard, breezy421, QuidoX, Rafael Gomez-http://micamara.es/, philwirks, redlegsfan21