Tourism Ireland has announced a new €1m advertising campaign for 2015. The promotion kicks off today with a wrap-around ad on the front and back pages of the Daily Telegraph in Britain.

The glossy spread will feature images of Irish beauty spots including the Cliffs of Moher and Powerscourt Gardens.

It is hoped over 1.2 million newspaper readers will see the advertisement which has been timed to coincide with plans for new year holidays.

The campaign is being rolled out in the UK, the US and mainland Europe.

In France and Germany, a new ad promoting Dublin as the 'must visit' city break destination in 2015 is appearing in cinemas during the month of December, reaching up to four million French and 750,000 German cinema-goers.

And online advertising in Spain during December has been promoting Dublin and the New Year’s Festival.

2014 was a strong year for overseas tourism, with about 7.3 million visitors contributing more than €3.6bn in revenue to the economy.

That is an increase of 8.8% over 2013.

Other highlights of the end-of-year strategy include a campaign with Classic FM in Britain over the Christmas period, and a week-long, national US TV campaign.

It began on Friday December 26th and will run through New Year's Eve. The ads went live for the first time on Friday on three major networks: NBC, CBS and ABC.

They will air in seven cities - New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The CEO of Tourism Ireland Niall Gibbons explains why this timeframe - and the British market in particular - is so important.