Dublin in Second Life

Tourism Ireland Launches World's First Marketing Drive in "Second Life"

Tourism Ireland launched a new marketing campaign in Second Life; this is the first
ever marketing promotion launched by a destination or "real world" tourist board in
the internet-based, virtual world of Second Life.
Since its establishment in 2003, Second Life has grown significantly and currently has
more than nine million registered users or "residents", 1.6 million of whom are considered
regular users. Sixty per cent of Second Life's users come from Ireland's four biggest
tourist markets: Great Britain, US, Germany and France. Half of those users are aged
over 30 -- a key demographic for tourism to the island of Ireland. These "residents" can
explore, socialise, participate in activities, trade items and services using Second Life's
currency, the Linden Dollar.

As part of this marketing campaign, Tourism Ireland sponsored a range of events and
activities from now until St Patrick's Day 2008 in Second Life's replica city of Dublin.
The events kick-off this weekend (26th--28th October) in virtual Dublin with the
"Discover Ireland Festival". Five bands and seven DJs will play on a stage located
on Grafton Street. A fashion show took place on a Liffey bridge, there were photographic
exhibitions of Irish landscapes on Grafton Street, and big screens provided a showcase
for promotional videos of Ireland.

Some experts predict that the web will be three-dimensional in a decade's time and virtual
worlds such as Second Life give us some idea of what the web may look like in the future.
Second Life is one of the biggest virtual worlds in existence and many major brands
including Coca-Cola, Vodafone, IBM, Toyota, Sony and Adidas already have a presence there.
Within the tourism industry, Starwood Hotels have used Second Life to pilot the design of a
new series of hotels and Thomas Cook offers customers virtual package tours.
While some tourist boards have built copies of their destinations within Second Life, none has
engaged in pro-active marketing to residents of Second Life as Tourism Ireland is now doing.

"Tourism Ireland is committed to using eMarketing to the best possible effect in promoting the
island of Ireland as a holiday destination and our involvement in Second Life is about finding
new ways to connect to today's web-savvy consumer", says Mark Henry, Tourism Ireland's
Director of Central Marketing. "The organisation has already doubled its digital marketing spend
over the past three years, to 14% of all marketing activity -- an investment of €6.5 million last year.
Tourism Ireland plans to spend close to a quarter of its entire marketing budget online in 2008."

Dublin in Second Life was created by John Mahon of PickSL and is a well established destination
or live music and DJs -- occasionally making the top ten list of the most popular places to visit there.
Tourism Ireland has chosen to partner with PickSL to leverage the success of virtual Dublin as a
Second Life destination, to promote the message of holidaying in the real-world destination.

Anyone can join in the "Discover Ireland Festival" by getting a free Second Life account through
http://secondlife.com or at the virtual Dublin web site: http://www.dublinsl.com

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• DMAStudios
• Dublin
• Secondlife
• events
• culture
• cityscape
• travel
• log

[borgship]

.. a lot of people, well, yanks actually. love annoying people of other countrys in normal regular times, and on paddy's day this will not have changed in ANY way, shape or indeed form, on Saint Patrick's Day remember it is often more realistic to own a Full Valid IRISH Passport BEFORE you can pretend to be Irish.

[hotelsindublin]

Very clever video!