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Chinese tourists vote for Ireland on the double ahead of The Gathering festivities

But Dublin fares badly in new TripAdvisor poll

PATRICK COUNIHAN,

IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Tuesday, January 15, 2013, 7:30 AM

Updated Tuesday, January 15, 2013, 12:42 PM

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Chinese tourists visit Birr, County Offaly - Shanghai newspaper has voted Ireland as the ‘most popular’ destination for 2012

Photo by Offaly Tatler

Ireland has received another major boost as The Gathering festival gathers force – this time from China.

A Shanghai newspaper has voted Ireland as the ‘most popular’ destination for 2012 and urged readers to visit in 2013.

The Oriental Morning Post award is voted on by the newspaper’s readers and by travel specialists.
Beijing publication Life Style magazine has also voted Ireland as the ‘most charming destination 2012’ in its latest awards.

The double boost has been welcomed by Tourism Ireland which markets Ireland abroad and has targeted China as a potential growth market.

Chief executive Niall Gibbons told the Irish Times: “I am confident that these awards will enhance the reputation of the island of Ireland and help to attract more Chinese visitors in 2013 and beyond.”

Dublin however has fared badly in a recent survey involving readers and users of the travel website TripAdvisor.

In a survey of 40 key tourist cities in the world, Dublin only finished high in the rankings in terms of friendliest taxi drivers (5th) and best taxi services (4th).

Ireland’s capital was 12th in terms of cleanest streets, 13th for safest city and 15th best for shopping.
And Dublin only ranked 27th for value for money and 29th for being underrated.

The results were based on more than 75,000 responses to a survey sent to those who recently wrote TripAdvisor reviews on the featured cities.

The city did receive a boost from Scotsman writer Martin Hannon who predicted Dublin’s New Year’s Eve festival could be as big as Edinburgh’s Hogmanay.

The report says that Hannon was one of the invited media for the New Year’s Eve festival, now in its second year.

He wrote: “We have a new competitor in our vicinity and Dublin doesn’t do second best to anybody - it is a true European capital, more than twice the size of Edinburgh in terms of population and with a history that dates back even longer than ours.”

Nster.com

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IrishRyan | Jan 16, 2013, 12:51 AM EST

Where ever you from, whether you be one of our american cousins or a person from China your more than welcome here in ireland, we like people coming from all over the world. @MarbethC.P, completey agree with you about Irish hospitality in resturants. As you said yourself, we dont have a "tipping tradition" here in ireland, our waitors just get what the customer asks, trust me, its got nothing to do with you being american, its just that thats the way resturants work here but its something we obviously have to work on because the attitude with waiters here is that you serve the customer their meal and thats it.

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MarybethC.P. | Jan 15, 2013, 11:17 AM EST

I've been going to Ireland for 40 years now, and never, ever tire of its many wonders! In beauty, Ireland is unparalleed around the world! My only [minor] complaint about Irish hospitality would be that your wait-staff and bar tenders could use a course from their Yankee cousins. Service is not good in any restaurants in Ireland - perhaps because there is no "tipping" tradition as we have in the STates. But servers must be trained to attend to the needs of their patrons. We Americans who usually eat out every meal while in Ireland find it impossible to find someone to refresh our tea, take our order, offer desserts, etc. It's as though wait-staff go into hiding when we arrive.

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CitizenWhy | Jan 15, 2013, 09:22 AM EST

Ireland needs to create some language camps in scenic areas for Chinese people and others. Concentrated on English, of course, but also possibly offering French, Spanish, German and Arabic. In turn offering mandarin for Europeans and Americans. The English accent would need to be a neutral one, soft Irish and Atlantic/Canadian. Maybe use some of the abdandoned housing estates for housing.

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