Tourism Ireland has launched a new Facebook game called Ireland Town, which will go live on St Patrick’s Day.
Observing the success of other social games on Facebook, such as Zynga’s FarmVille, Ireland Town will let international players build their own town in Ireland with the help of a ‘tour guide’ called Sally.
They can also explore famous sites around Ireland and can complete challenges to progress to the next level of the game. These challenges will reflect various attractions in Ireland.
Ireland Town will appear on 10 of Tourism Ireland’s Facebook pages, including France, Spain, Great Britain, the US, Italy, Canada, Germany, the Nordic Region, and the Netherlands.
There are 32 destinations and nine different tasks to complete at each place. Players can also progress faster by signing other Facebook friends up to the game. They can also win a prize of a holiday to Ireland.
“This is a new platform for Tourism Ireland to engage potential holidaymakers around the world with the kind of experience that a holiday in Ireland offers them,” said Mark Henry, Tourism Ireland’s central marketing director.
“It is a unique promotional tool and a first, as no other national tourist board had done this before.
“Tourism Ireland is constantly looking at innovative ways of reaching potential holidaymakers and we are increasingly using social media to do so, growing the online conversation about Ireland around the world.”
Henry believes that up to 100,000 Facebook fans will sign up to play Ireland Town in the next few weeks.
“Given that Tourism Ireland currently has a fanbase of a quarter of a million people around the globe, and each of the fans has in turn an average of 130 friends, Tourism Ireland can potentially engage with 32.5m people worldwide through our new Ireland Town game,” said Henry.
