Tourism Ireland’s New Chief Executive Designate Shares What She Loves About The Emerald Isle

17.03.2024 - 20:53 / forbes.com

Alice Mansergh is spending St. Patrick’s Day 2024 in Washington, D.C., to participate in a longtime tradition. It involves delegates from Ireland presenting the current U.S. president with a bowl of shamrocks to mark this Irish holiday.

Last September, Mansergh was appointed as Tourism Ireland’s current Chief Executive Designate. In this leadership role, this Dublin native and now Dunleary resident is responsible for marketing the island to overseas visitors.

Prior to this position, Mansergh worked for almost 20 years at Google, leading large-scale commercial organizations. As managing director, UK & Ireland Customer Solutions, she steered Google’s customer marketing division, growing the tech giant’s products, including Google Chrome, Google Maps and Gmail.

From 2018 to 2023, Mansergh served on the board of Fáilte Ireland, the operating name of the National Tourism Development Authority of Ireland, oversighting investments to strengthen tourism offerings and support industry amid COVID-19.

In timing with St. Patrick’s Day, Forbes spoke with Mansergh about her position, tourism trends and plans to further promote visitation to Ireland.

Mansergh: I saw the role posted online and I have long thought the marketing the island of Ireland as a holiday destination will be the dream job. So, I just applied for it, as anybody else would. As to why, I had been at Google for 19 years and loved my time at the tech industry. I was always in sales and marketing roles. And I lived around the world with Google, but I would always travel back to Ireland quite a bit and in fact have holidayed on the island of Ireland every year for forty-plus years. So, I'm a huge fan.

On the island of Ireland, tourism is one of the biggest employers. It employs over 300,000 people in Northern Ireland and [the Republic of] Ireland, and 70 percent of them are outside of the major cities. So, there's this real sense that you're bringing people in to have a wonderful time and make lifelong memories. But you're also supporting jobs of small businesses and rural entrepreneurs around the island. That's what's so exciting about it for me.

Mansergh: The travel industry has changed almost beyond recognition. If you go back twenty years or so, you've got people choosing their travel by walking into a travel agency and sitting down and thumbing through a brochure and choosing somewhere on the spot; whereas now we have 24/7 travel influencers.

Seventy-five percent of people say they use social media as their primary source of inspiration for travel. You've then got people researching and booking online. I think what it means for me and the team is making sure that we are where people are. You want to show the right message to the right person at