Tourism Ireland is advertising city breaks in Dublin and Belfast to the 8 million British shoppers who use fashion and beauty site Asos.

Building on what it describes as a successful partnership with Asos in 2014, the three-month campaign is targeting Tourism Ireland's "social energiser" audience in Britain in a bid to promote Ireland as a "cool, vibrant and modern destination" . . . which it is, of course.

A "48 Hours in Ireland" link prominently displayed on the Asos site leads to a short game to create an itinerary for Dublin or Belfast, while full-page articles on the two cities will appear in the June and July editions of Asos magazine. The campaign also includes banner ads, email marketing and social media activity.

Britain is the largest market for tourism to the island of Ireland and 2015 has got off to a good start, with the CSO figures showing growth of almost 8 per cent for the December 2014 to February 2015 period. That’s an additional 49,200 British visitors compared to the same three-month period a year earlier.

Sterling

Tourism Ireland has “an extensive programme of promotions under way across Britain” this year, says

Vanessa Markey

, head of Britain for the all-island tourism body.

Sterling also goes a little further in the euro zone these days, which will help make Dublin more attractive to the average British city-breaker – even if they do all their shopping online before coming here.