[caption id="attachment_68846" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Tourism Ireland's Joe Byrne."]
It doesn't take long in the company of Joe Byrne to realize that the man is a born guide.
If you were exploring the better known tourist attractions that Ireland has to offer, the many lesser known ones, and indeed the island's outright secrets, here would be the man to take you to them and cast them in the best possible light.
That's not to imply an absence of critical faculties. As head of Tourism Ireland's operation in North America, Byrne is required to apply an owl's ear and eagle's eye to what is Ireland's most enduring product: itself.
So don't judge the man entirely by his famously jovial exterior.
But for sure enjoy it if the news he has to impart is good enough to be jovial about.
And in the closing days of a year that will go down in Ireland as hard and biting, Joe Byrne's news is indeed good, and can be summed up thus: Americans not only love to visit Ireland, but even in tough times they are making it their business to go there.
"We are now recognizing a fantastic performance in 2011 in terms of visitor numbers to Ireland and Ireland's market share," Byrne said at the outset of an interview last week in his Midtown Manhattan office.
"We're celebrating a tremendous year in Ireland's tourist industry, of which Tourism Ireland is a part. Visitor numbers have made 2011 one of the best years ever," Byrne, who is Tourism Ireland's executive vice president for North America, told the Echo.
In terms of market share, Byrne explained that Ireland witnessed visitor growth of between eight and then percent in 2011, this against about four percent for Europe in general.
"This was better than we expected," he said.
For anyone familiar with Ireland it is not too difficult to explain why people like to go there, this even if they have no familial ties to the island.
But Joe Byrne has three reasons at his fingertips which constitute a mantra of sorts.
"We have a fantastic brand in the U.S. and Canada and both have been performing well. Everybody has Ireland on the list of places they want to go to someday. It's a bucket list destination, and that means a pent up demand," he explained.
"Secondly, we have a fantastic tourist product. It delights American visitors, indeed exceeds their expectations. And they are getting value on the ground. Prices in Ireland have been going down the last couple of years and the dollar is buying more there."
"Thirdly, Ireland stayed with it during the tough years after 2008. Others looked to other markets but we stayed in the market here. We did the same after 9/11. As a result, the dip in visitor numbers to Ireland was shallower than it was to other countries, and our recovery was faster."
As in any business, raw intelligence is invaluable and Tourism Ireland spends a lot of time and energy talking to Americans and Canadians who have made the journey across the Atlantic.
One nugget of raw intelligence that emerged in this interview was the fact that roughly 70 percent of North American visitors to Ireland are so-called "promotable visitors." That is they have no immediate family or clearly known ancestral ties to the island.
As Joe Byrne put it: they go because they want to go.
And when they come back, Tourism Ireland wants to hear how it all turned out.
"I go out of my way looking for problems and negatives, and we do pre and post visitor surveys," Byrne explained.
Nowhere in the world is perfect of course, but Ireland turns up a virtual absence of significant negatives in the surveys, this despite the fact that visitors generally have high expectations before they travel.
And it's a lot of visitors with those high expectations.
In raw numbers, 2011 has indeed been a standout though the latest precise figure covers the twelve months between October 2010 and the end of September of this year.
That precise number of North American visitors during the period was 1.014 million. This represents an increase of 11.5 percent over the previous twelve months and, according to Tourism Ireland, indeed suggests that Ireland has significantly increased its share of U.S. and Canadian travelers to Europe in the current year.
The million total comes after figures released recently in Belfast showed an increase of 22 percent in visitors from the U.S. and Canada to Northern Ireland for the six months from January to June this year. The increase in revenue as a result of this grew by an impressive 57 percent compared with last year.
Ireland, of course, is now sold as an all-island destination and tourism is, as Byrne puts it," a serious business" for the entire island.
It being a serious business, there is no chance that Tourism Ireland and everyone else involved in the tourist sector are going to rest on their laurels.
"Yes, we've had a great year, and it was badly needed," said Byrne.
"But there is no automatic momentum without working for it. If we become blasé or over confident, then we are making a mistake. Consumer confidence in America is low right now so we have to be ever conscious of the fact that people won't necessarily come to Ireland unless they are constantly being told what they are missing.
"So the tourist industry in Ireland is not resting on its laurels. It's a product that has to continue to delight and exceed expectations."
So looking ahead to 2012, what's on the tourist menu?
In answering this, Byrne looked well north of his native Carlow, to Belfast to be precise. He also looked beyond the coming year, to 2013.
"The Titanic Quarter in Belfast is opening (to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the great ship's epic demise) and the visitor center at the Giant's Causeway is also opening. Along with these two standout events there is a range of range of festivals and events throughout the year. It's a menu that gives proof to the view of a hugely self-demanding tourism industry.
"And of course there is Derry/Londonderry being the UK City of Culture in 2013. There is a fantastic program being built around this."
Also in 2013, Tourism Ireland is working on a year-long plan for "The Gathering," an idea which is based literally on an invitation to people around the word, particularly, but not exclusively, of Irish origin, to "gather" on the island to sample a year-long program of events that will include clan and heritage gatherings, festivals and major sporting events.
With so much going on, ease of access to the island rests heavily on the number of flights to Irish airports from North America and elsewhere, and also the number of seats on those flights. According to Byrne, there was an increase in flight seat access of eight percent during the 2011 peak travel season compared to the previous year.
Access to Ireland from the U.S. was specifically boosted in 2011 by a new U.S. Airways service out of Charlotte, North Carolina. Seat numbers will be raised again in the spring of 2012 when United/Continental start up a new service to Ireland out of Washington, D.C.
Tourism being a business it is not necessarily always in command of its own destiny, either immediate or long term. Market downturns are always possible and specific events, such as the aforementioned 9/11, can upend the best laid plans.
And there are those events that have no human hand behind them, the Icelandic volcano eruption in 2010 is a case in point.
But there are also "happy accidents," as Byrne likes to describe them.
"We have our normal, aggressive, program of advertising and promotion but we also have to be ready to exploit happy accidents," he said.
For an absolute standout happy accident read four names: Padraig Harrington, Graeme McDowell, Rory McIlroy and Darren Clarke. The achievements of these four Irish golfers needs to elaboration here but the knock-on effects of their successes is having an enormously positive impact on a critical part of the overall Irish tourist industry.
"The Home of Champions" advertising campaign (the title was, according to Byrne, coined by Taoiseach Enda Kenny) would not have been possible without the trail blazed across the golfing world in recent years by the Irish "big four."
This has led to lucrative new relationships such as Tourism Ireland teaming up with the NBC-owned Golf Channel to bring golf fans "Big Break Ireland," a reality golf show which was filmed at the K-Club, thge setting for the memorable 2006 Ryder Cup.
The success of Irish golfers, and the exposure on shows such as "Big Break Ireland," which, Byrne is quick to point out, keeps on repeating itself on TV, has really cemented Ireland as a golfing destination for Americans.
Byrne describes Ireland's golf major winning foursome as "fantastic ambassadors" and their reputations and success as "the gift that keep on giving."
A happy accident indeed.
But all this is not to forget the nuts and bolts work behind selling Ireland. It goes on pretty well every day of the year, Tourism Ireland's office on Park Avenue being the nerve center.
"There are 147 countries with tourist boards working here in New York," said Byrne, glancing out the window of his 17th floor office.
"We are modest in our ambition. We just want to be known as the best of them."
