Tourism Ireland wins marketing award for Game of Thrones campaign

You may remember that, while Game of Thrones Season 5 was going on, Tourism Ireland staged a number of Thrones-themed photo ops throughout Northern Ireland. The signpost in the featured image was one of them. There was also a collection of dragon’s eggs sold at a local market…

…a bunch of medieval weaponry shoved into a bin reserved for sharp objects at the Belfast City Airport…

…and of course a fountain frozen mid-spurt by White Walkers.

Now, Tourism Ireland has been honored with the “best travel” award at the International Content Marketing Awards held recently in London, beating out stiff competition from companies like British Airways, Scandinavian Airlines, and Quantas Airways. (I suppose it makes sense that airlines would be nominated in this category, since they’re trying to inspire travel. Tourism Ireland’s situation, which involved trying to get folks to visit the country using Game of Thrones as an incentive, must be more rare.) The images, together with a collection of short films, garnered over 4.5 million views on Facebook and 38,000 likes on Instagram.

It’s an honor just to be nominated, but it’s way cooler to win. Photo: Business World.

Quoth Brian Twomey, Tourism Ireland’s Head of Marketing Communications:

"Our aim was to reach out to the show’s global fanbase, spiking their curiosity about the landscapes and locations featured in the series and inspiring them to come and explore them for themselves. We are constantly looking at innovative and engaging ways of reaching potential holidaymakers for Northern Ireland, so we are particularly honoured to receive this award. Castle Ward"

The marketing campaign, combined with the gravitational pull naturally exerted by HBO’s mega-hit, seems to have done what it set our to do. Thrones-inspired tourism to Northern Ireland is at an all-time high. Castle Ward, which has stood in for Winterfell, attracted 10,000 visitors in 2014. It pulled in more than double that number in 2015. According to the Radio Times, people from the U.S. are fond of “glamping” in the forests around Castle Ward, which is the closest they’re likely to get to sleeping in the forests outside Winterfell.*

Game of Thrones has been great for the local film industry, too. Ten years ago, the country didn’t even have one movie studio. Now it has three, including Titanic Studios, where much of Game of Thrones is filmed. “On the back of Game of Thrones, the industry globally sat up and took notice,” said Moyra Lock of Northern Ireland Screen. “It really cemented our reputation and it gave the industry confidence that we could deliver a large-scale television show, which has grown into the biggest show in the world.”

With no signs that interest in the show is flagging, we can expect the Game of Thrones tourism bust to continue. Congratulations to Tourism Ireland on their win—I wonder what they have planned for Season 6.

*“Glamping” is a portmanteau for “glamorous camping,” which is like regular camping, only everything is fancy and there’s electricity and you don’t have to interact with nature if you don’t want to.

h/t Business World