A new Tourism Ireland Japanese language website has been launched to capitalise on a growing market for Irish tourism.
About 20,000 Japanese tourists visit Ireland every year. It is a small fraction of the nearly 18 million trips taken abroad annually by Japanese tourists.
It makes Japanese the 11th language featured on the Tourism Ireland website at ireland.com.
Tourism Ireland chief executive Niall Gibbons said the Japanese market into Europe is on the rise after a dramatic decline following the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001.
“We had a presence in the market a number of years ago, but we pulled back from it,” he said.
“The numbers had declined to 12,000 in 2010, but are on the rise again Ireland.com has been a very strong portal for us and this gets us into another market.”
Mr Gibbons said the Star Wars franchise and Game of Thrones had help increase Ireland's profile in Japan.
Skellig Michael features on the front page of the Japanese version of the Tourism Ireland website.
The new portral was launched by Minister for the Diaspora and International Development Joe McHugh at the Chester Beatty Library.
Mr McHugh said the website was part of an attempt to strengthen the Irish presence across Asia.
The Japanese language version of the website can be found atireland.com/ja-jp/.
