Tourism Ireland plan on capitalizing on Rory McIlroy's big win at the US Open, last month, by launching a $3.1 million advertising campaign.

The Holywood man garnered a massive amount of international media interest having won the Congressional last month and now Tourism Ireland plan on capitalizing on his success by boosting the number of traveler visiting Ireland for golf vacations.

Currently Ireland sees about 150,000 golfers from overseas every year. They are worth an estimated $154 million to the Irish economy. McIlroy's and Graeme McDowell's success at the same tournament last year, are being used to hook in more visitors.

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Data from O'Leary Analytics showed that 34,000 news articles popped up in 100 countries during the nine days after the US Open. The results showed that 18,000 of these stories were in the US alone. Millions of Americans, golfing Americans, were reading about these Irish golfers.

chief executive of Tourism Ireland Niall Gibbons said " Rory McIlroy’s victory at the US Open has placed golf in Ireland in the global spotlight and represents a huge opportunity. Tourism Ireland is focused on growing the number of golf tourists to Ireland in 2011 and beyond, and building on the really positive momentum around Ireland as a holiday destination already generated by the historic visits of Queen Elizabeth II and President Obama in May.

“Golf is the world’s largest sports-related travel market and Tourism Ireland is working hard to drive home the message that a golfing holiday in Ireland is about much more than a round of 18 holes – the combination of Ireland’s world-class golf product and our unique brand of hospitality plays a key role in attracting golfers to come here. Rory is a superb ambassador for the game and for the island of Ireland. We look forward to seeing him in action at the Irish Open in Killarney this summer”

Tourism Ireland will run an ad campaign in British the media over the summer aimed at selling the ‘Home of Champions’ to potential tourists. Ads will also appear in Golf Week and Golf Word magazines in the US as well as Irish-American publications the Irish Voice and Irish Echo.

Further campaigns are being run the Solheim Cup which is being held at Killeen Castle in County Meath in September and in Germany and Sweden where there are about 650,000 registered golfers.