A plan to market Ireland as three "super regions" was announced today in a bid to increase tourists numbers.
Minister for Arts, Culture and Tourism John O'Donoghue said an additional €3 million would be spent on the initiative.
Last year saw the largest number of visitors ever travel to Ireland — with 6.7 million choosing to visit the Republic.
"However, not all regions and not all sectors benefited equally," Mr O'Donoghue said. "There was a very good increase in tourists in larger urban centres, for example, such as Dublin, which was up by over 11 per cent. But some of the regions stayed stagnant or had no specific increases."
The "super regions" will include Ireland South, covering Cork, Kerry and the south-east; Ireland West, comprising Shannon Development, the West and the Northwest and Ireland East, covering Midlands East, Dublin, Cavan and Monaghan.
"I think the problem is this we have reached the stage where there is a sea-change in tourism, we have more visitors than ever before. We have what I would describe as a cash-rich and time-poor customer, we have got to tailor our product accordingly," he said.
Mr O'Donoghue said each of the regions would be allocated a million euro to spend on overseas promotion.
"In those circumstances what we are trying to do is spread the benefits of tourism across the regions, and in that context we have now decided we will market three regions in the country — Ireland South, Ireland East and Ireland West," he said.
"The objective of the exercise is to pool resources amongst a number of regional tourism authorities, so we will be in a position to market these areas as entities in themselves."
Mr O'Donoghue said an innovation fund to build up products and a local area development fund to promote tourism would also be established. Several €1 million grants will also be available for local area marketing projects.
PA