Over 1,000 members of the public attended the Ireland West Airport Knock Holiday Fair which was held in association with Mayo Travel Agents, on Sunday, 8th March 2009, in the TF Royal Hotel in Castlebar. People travelled from as far as Athlone to attend the show. This was the first of a series of Holiday Fair shows which are being planned by the Airport for the West and North West region of Ireland. Admission on the day was free and the public availed of massive discounts on sun holidays direct from Ireland West Airport Knock. All of Ireland West Airport’s tour operator partners including Concorde Travel, Panorama, JWT, Sunworld and Sunway provided super discounts off a wide range of sun holidays from Ireland West Knock in support of the event. Eight Mayo-based Travel Agents representing towns from across the county were there on the day offering super holiday options and advice on holidays for summer 2009. There were a number of spot prizes won on the day including return flights for two; to Dublin with Aer Arann, Birmingham with bmi baby and London Gatwick with Aer Lingus. The main prize was a sun holiday for two to Croatia kindly sponsored by Concorde Travel. While the Mum’s and Dad’s were busy looking for bargains the kids were busy getting their faces painted.

Commenting on the inaugural Ireland West Knock Holiday Fair in Mayo, Annette Kearney, Marketing and Route Development Manager, Ireland West Airport Knock said: “We are absolutely delighted with the turn out for our inaugural Holiday Fair Show. Sunday was a windy and wet day so we could not have asked for better weather conditions to encourage people to come out and look for some sun holiday ideas! I think one of the big positives of the day was that the public could avail of top holiday advice provided by our local travel agents and find super bargains on great sun destinations such as the Portuguese Algarve, Spain’s’ Costa Brava region, Lanzarote, and Majorca in the mix. Therefore they were able to go home and think about the packages before having to immediately handover any money as the offers were available for seven days thereafter. For example Falcon were offering €50 off per adult booking to Majorca or Salou, Panorama were giving €100 off all bookings to Faro and Concorde were also giving €100 off all bookings to Split. We are also pleased to see the return of Lanzarote as holiday option which will be operated by Sunway, who were also giving €50 off all adult bookings. Equally there was a lot of interest in our new twice weekly scheduled Alicante flight with Ryanair which starts on June 5th next. The tour operators were only offering these discounts through the Mayo Travel Agents. Building on the success of this year’s show we hope to make this an annual event. On behalf of the Airport I would like to thank everyone who came along and support the event as well as Mayo’s travel agents and our own Airport staff who helped organise the event."

This year at Ireland West Airport Knock there are a range of holidays from Ireland’s leading Travel Partners such as Concorde Travel, Falcon JWT, (Zurich) Falcon Travelthinkhouse, Sunway, Panorama, Sunworld, Enjoy Travel, Paul Claffey Tours, Joe Walsh Tours and Croatia Tours, as well as the option of two new destinations with the addition of Alicante and Zurich to the Airport’s European destination portfolio. Low cost airline, Ryanair will begin the Airport’s first scheduled European service in June. As well as these two exciting holiday options, packages are also available to Split, Algrave, Ibiza, Palma, Majorca and Salou. If you missed your chance to attend the Mayo Holiday Fair look out for future Holiday Fair Show  in Sligo, Galway and Athlone which will be taking place over the next few weeks. The special offers promoted at the Holiday Fair are available for another week bookable through your local Mayo Travel agent – so hurry book now for the best summer sun deal! 

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