TravelMedia.ie/TTR & Visit Portugal Wraps Up Strong Year of Activity in the Irish Market

Supported by TravelMedia.ie and TTR, the 2026 programme centred around three major activations: Meet the Media 2026, the TTR Destinations Roadshow Portugal 2026 and the Dalkey Book Festival 2026. Together, the events provided opportunities to engage directly with Irish travel journalists, content creators, travel agents, tour operators and consumers, while bringing Portuguese destinations, tourism businesses and cultural experiences to the Irish market.

Connecting with the Irish Travel Media

Meet the Media 2026 provided a major media platform for Portugal, with the event moving to the larger Clayton Hotel, Burlington Road to accommodate its continued growth. The event brought together 53 global suppliers and more than 120 media representatives, including journalists, broadcasters, editors, content creators, bloggers and influencers.

Five Portuguese tourism partners participated: Turismo do Algarve, Visit Madeira, Turismo de Cascais, Turismo do Alentejo and Visit Portugal, with each able to take part in a full programme of pre-scheduled one-to-one meetings.

Visit Portugal also continued its sponsorship of the Travel Media Awards for a second consecutive year, including the Best Portuguese Travel Story category. The 2026 award was jointly won by Deirdre Mullins for her story on Madeira and Fergal O’Keeffe for his subsequent interview with Mullins on his Travel Tales podcast, providing further editorial visibility for Portugal in the Irish market.

Bringing Portugal to the Travel Trade

The TTR Destinations Roadshow saw Portugal return to Dublin and Cork in 2026 and expanded to Athlone for the first time, allowing Visit Portugal and its partners to engage with a new regional audience of Irish travel agents.

A total of 21 Portuguese suppliers participated across the programme, representing Madeira and Porto Santo, Algarve, Alentejo, Porto and the North, Centro de Potugal alongside hotels, DMCs and an airline. In total, 99 travel agents attended across the three cities.

The business sessions were complemented by an authentic Portuguese experience, with each evening beginning with Alentejo wine and a specially curated petiscos menu, followed by Portuguese music and dancing. The programme was designed to demonstrate that Portugal’s tourism proposition extends well beyond destination presentations, connecting trade engagement with the food, wine and cultural experiences visitors can enjoy in Portugal.

Portugal at the Dalkey Book Festival

Visit Portugal also returned as a sponsor of the Dalkey Book Festival, expanding its presence across the four-day event with activations at Cornernote Café, Dalkey Castle & Heritage Centre, the Secret Garden VIP area and the Cuala Bar.

The festival provided an opportunity to reach consumers through a programme that reflected the breadth of the Pairing Portugal theme. Rather than focusing solely on wine as a product, Pairing Portugal explored the connections between wine, gastronomy, culture, art, music and regional experiences. The theme provided a flexible narrative that could be adapted across the different talks and events, highlighting the many ways visitors can discover Portugal.

At Cornernote, visitors could take part in Portuguese wine and gastronomy tastings, explore traditional Portuguese artistic techniques with artist Susana Cereja and enjoy live Portuguese music from vocalist Filipa Quintino. A dedicated Portuguese menu and wine selection was also available throughout the weekend, allowing visitors to continue their experience of Portugal outside the scheduled events.

The festival demonstrated how Portugal can be presented through culture and experience, creating opportunities to reach an audience beyond the traditional travel trade and travel media.

A Year of Building Connections

Across the 2026 programme, Visit Portugal continued to strengthen its position in the Irish market by combining trade engagement, media relations and consumer-facing activity. The strategy placed a strong emphasis on building meaningful relationships with those who influence and sell travel to Portugal, while also finding new ways to communicate the destination directly to Irish consumers.

Portugal as a year-round destination for Irish visitors provided the overarching narrative for this year’s activities. They once again demonstrated the connections between Portuguese wine and gastronomy, culture and creativity, regional identity and the wider visitor experience. From a glass of Alentejo wine at a travel trade event to a literary discussion about walking across Portugal or a tasting featuring wines from the Azores, the programme offered Irish audiences different ways to discover the country.