Fáilte Ireland is urging transition-year students and their teachers to plan school trips in Ireland, not overseas.
The tourism body launched a brochure yesterday detailing attractions, activities and sample itineraries for educational trips, which is being sent to secondary schools.
It is hoped that this initiative will help boost Irish tourism, which has seen a drop of almost one-fifth in overseas visitors travelling here in 2009, and a loss of about 12,000 jobs.
The brochure was developed in response to the Ideas Campaign, a website that received more than 5,000 submissions from the public on how economic recovery could be improved. During the summer, the Government adopted a number of suggestions, this being one of them.
Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe said: “Almost 30,000 students take part in the transition-year programme each year. By opting for Irish locations for educational tours, schools will add value to students’ appreciation of our indigenous landscape, heritage and culture as well as strengthening the domestic tourism market and helping our economic recovery.”