Tourism Ireland announced on Monday that it plans to grow the number of overseas visitors to the island of Ireland to 12 million by the year 2022.

Meanwhile, it also hopes to increase its overseas tourism revenue to 6.54 billion euros (about 7.25 billion U.S. dollars) within the next three years.

The plans were unveiled at an event held here which was attended by some 500 tourism industry leaders from around the country. 

Speaking at the event, Niall Gibbons, chief executive of Tourism Ireland, said that "In 2019 we've seen a continuing weak trend in Irish tourism."

Tourism Ireland predicted that in 2019 the revenue generated by international visitors to the island of Ireland will drop to 5.78 billion euros from last year's 6.1 billion euros while the number of the overseas visitors will remain almost at last year's level of 11.2 million. 

To achieve its growth targets, Tourism Ireland will launch a number of marketing measures including more focus on less visited attractions and locations on the island of Ireland and redevelopment of its Ireland.com website which annually attracts over 20 million viewers.

To support the development of tourism, the Irish government has increased its funding for the tourism sector to 186 million euros for the next year, up 10 percent from this year, said Brendan Griffin, Irish Minister of State for Tourism and Sport, who also attended the Monday event. 

Tourism Ireland is an agency jointly funded by the Irish government and the government of Northern Ireland to market the island of Ireland overseas as a leading tourist destination. 

Of all the overseas visitors to the island of Ireland last year, about 2.2 million were received by Northern Ireland, said Tourism Ireland. (1 euro=1.108 U.S. dollars) 

(Cover: The scenery of the Cliffs of Moher in southwest Ireland. /VCG Photo)