WHERE IS THE best place to visit in Ireland?

According to the CIE excellence awards, that place is the Cliffs of Moher Visitor Experience in County Clare.

The centre has just been awarded the CIE Gold Award of Overall Excellence for Best Visit in Ireland during 2012 at a ceremony in Dublin’s National Gallery of Ireland.

The awards saw 62 locations being acknowledged for their excellence, with Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Leo Varadkar presenting the plaques to the winners. This is the 23rd year of the CIE Tours International Awards of Excellence.

The Irish National Stud and Japanese Garden won a silver merit award, while there were 12 overall gold category winners. Best hotel accommodation was given to Harveys Point Country Hotel in Donegal, Best 5 Star Hotel to Dromoland Castle, and Best Tour Feature to the sheep dog trial run in Kerry.

Tribute

Katherine Webster, Director of the Cliffs of Moher Visitor Experience said:

This award is a tribute to the staff of the Cliffs of Moher Visitor Experience and the agencies that have made considerable investments in developing the attraction during recent years. While we have won CIE Tours International awards in each of the past three years, this is the first time that we have been awarded the Gold Medal.

The winners were chosen following independent evaluation of feedback surveys by 17,000 CIE Tours International customers.

The centre was opened in February 2007, and since then O’Brien’s tower has been restored and reopened. There were 873,988 visitors to the Cliffs of Moher last year, an increase of 65,000 since 2011.

Brian Stack, managing director of CIE Tours International, said that bookings are strong for 2013 and expected to surpass 2012 levels.

We have definitely experienced an increase in interest in early bookings that we are attributing to the efforts of Tourism Ireland in marketing The Gathering along with ‘earlybird’ discount offers we made across our range of tours.

What is your favourite place to visit in Ireland?

Read: Trips to Ireland up 5 per cent in last quarter of 2012>

Read: Photo: Cliffs of Moher, meet the Milky Way>

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