Alison Metcalfe
IRISH TRAVEL & CULTURE GUIDE
SUMMER 2013
June 2013
ALISON METCALFE
Tourism Ireland Leader
Congratulations to Alison Metcalfe, whose marketing strategies in years past have helped propel Ireland as a key destination for people living in North America. She has been promoted as the head of Tourism Ireland, replacing long-serving Joe Byrne, who is retiring from Tourism Ireland.
Alison begins her new post in June. A veteran marketing leader, she has worked for Tourism Ireland and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board since 1992, initially in Canada and then in the United States. She was promoted to Vice President of Marketing in 2007, and led the recent U.S. campaign, “Make Ireland Jump Out.”
Tourism Ireland was created by the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, and called for a tourism effort in North America that included all 32 counties in both the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland. The goal was to promote the island as a single destination, without political distinctions.
Prior to joining Tourism Ireland, Metcalfe worked with VisitBritain in London, Portugal and Toronto. North America is the island of Ireland’s second-largest tourism market, with close to one million visitors traveling to Ireland in 2012, generating $1 billion in revenue.