More than 500 buildings and structures across the world will light up green for St Patrick’s’s day this year, a record number for the tenth anniversary of Tourism Ireland’s “Global Greening” initiative.
This year Madison Square Garden in New York, The Frame in Dubai, the world’s largest beaver statue in Canada, as well as a giant statue of a kissing couple in Amsterdam, will be added to the list of icons going green.
Other new sites taking part in celebrating St Patrick’s’s Day by going green include the National Museum of Qatar, City Hall in Bangkok, and the National Theatre in London.
Already in the line up from previous years are the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Niagara Falls, the chain bridge in Budapest and Moulin Rouge in Paris among others.
Welcoming the new additions, Niall Gibbons chief executive of Tourism Ireland said the success of the initiative had been greatly helped by the the diaspora and the Republic’s embassy network around the world. He said there was “eagerness” among cities and countries across the planet to take part a feature which underlined deep connections with Ireland.
He said the event brought “saturation coverage” of the island of Ireland across radio, TV, print and digital media around the world.
New for 2020 is a Tourism Ireland “Green is the new black” campaign which is modelled on the Black Friday shopping day premise. Green is the new black is designed to coincide with a time-limited sales period offering prospective visitors in all of the island’s main markets exclusive savings on fares and discounts on products and services when they get here.
The aim is to capitalise on the Global Greening initiative and to stimulate sales at a key booking period.
