Pat O'Leary Appointed to Board of Tourism Ireland

Kerry Tourism Industry Federation Chair, Pat O’Leary, has been appointed to the Board of Directors of Tourism Ireland, the state agency responsible for marketing the island of Ireland overseas as a leading holiday destination.

LEADERSHIP & COLLABORATION

Pat will bring his significant leadership approach from a successful career as Managing Director of Liebherr Cranes in Ireland to his collaborative destination marketing and advocacy work with Kerry Tourism Industry Federation and the Discover Kerry project.

As Chair of KTIF, Pat continues to develop and lead the shared vision with both public and private stakeholders in the county’s tourism industry, representing the industry's issues and needs at the local and National levels. A valuable contributor as a stakeholder at county level at several forums, Pat also represents the tourism industry of Kerry at national level on the council of the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation (ITIC).

MAINTAINING A SENSE OF PLACE

Connecting and aligning local county-wide strategies with national and international tourism strategies is a focus for Pat, and it’s central to the marketing objectives of KTIF that the unique, local and authentic sense of place is represented in international marketing strategies.

The Board of Kerry Tourism Industry Federation state: “Pat’s commitment to a pragmatic, joined-up approach, at local, national and international levels, is the vision KTIF has promoted in its marketing and stakeholder engagement.    We expect that he will bring a similar mindset to his Tourism Ireland role for the benefit of tourism both locally and nationally”.

WORLD-CLASS MARKETING

Tourism Ireland delivers world-class marketing programmes internationally to fourteen markets, with priority markets Great Britain, the United States, Germany and France which deliver the majority of Ireland’s overseas visitors. Tourism Ireland also works with overseas media, travel trade, air and sea carriers, in addition to providing opportunities overseas for the tourism sector and sharing market knowledge with the sector.

KERRY PROMOTION IN UK MARKET

One of Tourism Ireland’s initiatives for 2025 / 2026 is the twinning of Tourism Ireland Great Britain with a number of Irish destinations including Kerry.  Through engagement with KTIF this initiative has provided an opportunity for Kerry based tourism businesses and destinations to submit content of interest to the TI GB team for consideration across all of their platforms – from new product / experiences to our unique festivals – contact info@ktif.ie for more information.