Irish companies joined Tourism Ireland in Paris for a business tourism workshop called ‘MICE Connect’, in a bid to grow French business travellers to the island of Ireland.

Pictured are  Caroline Phelan, Tourism Ireland; Alessio Monterosso, Aer Lingus; Orla McCabe, Killashee House Hotel; Niamh Burns, The Convention Centre, Dublin; and François Tessier, Abbey Incentive and Events.

 

The event, attracting about 1,000 French conference and meeting professionals involved in the MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and events) industry, provided the Irish tourism companies with an excellent opportunity to do business face-to-face with the influential decision-makers in attendance, through a series of pre-scheduled appointments and networking opportunities.

 

Monica MacLaverty, Tourism Ireland’s head of southern Europe, said: “We were delighted that so many key decision-makers from the business tourism sector in France took the time to come and meet our Irish partners, demonstrating their keen interest in programming the island of Ireland in 2015 and beyond. Ireland has always been a strong player in the French marketplace for incentive business and we were very pleased with the strong turnout from the association conference sector, which together with our industry partners, we will continue to proactively target in 2015.”

 

Business tourism is the most lucrative form of tourism, with visitors travelling here for business purposes spending about 2.5 times more than the average visitor.