Niagara Falls to go green for St. Patrick’s Day in tourism push for Ireland

This year, the world famous Niagara Falls will be turned green for the first time to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, Tourism Ireland has announced.

Also going green on St. Patrick’s Day will be the fountains at the White House.

This marks the third year of Tourism Ireland’s “greening” initiative, in which famous landmarks around the globe turn green to honor Ireland’s patron Saint.

Attractions going green this March include the Empire State Building in New York; the London Eye; Burj Al Arab in Dubai; Table Mountain in South Africa; the Sky Tower in Auckland, and the TV tower in Berlin’s Alexanderplatz.

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Tourism Ireland’s chief executive, Niall Gibbons, said the annual campaign is a very cost effective way of promoting Ireland.

“Our aim is to bring a smile to the world and to convey the message that Ireland continues to offer a warm welcome, fun and spontaneity, alongside fantastic scenery and cultural activities,” he said.

“There will be saturation coverage of the island of Ireland across the airwaves, in newspapers and digital media and that’s an invaluable boost for our overall tourism marketing drive.”
Gibbons said the St.Pat’s period event would be used to launch The Gathering 2013, a year-long effort to bring the Irish diaspora home that has the potential to bring an extra 325,000 people to Ireland.

Minister for Tourism Leo Varadkar told the Irish Times that St Patrick’s Day provided “a unique shop window for Ireland around the world, for Irish tourism and for trade and investment”.

Here's one of Tourism Ireland's pushes from last year that went viral on YouTube - "Riverdance" falshmob at in the central Sydney train station (Organized in part by Sneaky Steppers):