Online searches on Louth soared during President Biden visit

Online mentions of Dundalk, Carlingford and Louth soared last week during the visit of US President Joe Biden, with the reach extending to hundreds of millions.

Director of Service, Thomas McEvoy, told members at the Louth County Council April meeting, that the Council did research last weekend, following the visit, where it discovered that Dundalk achieved a reach online of 89 million people.

Louth achieved a reach of 257 million people, while Carlingford achieved a reach of 334 million, “extraordinary numbers”, Mr McEvoy told the meeting.

Cllr Paula Butterly had raised the matter at the April meeting, asking that in light of the successful visit of President Biden, what plans Louth County Council might have to develop and accelerate any economic and tourist opportunity that arose from the visit.

Mr McEvoy said that there is an opportunity to build on the visit and told the members that in terms of hits on the local authority's websites, on the Visit Louth website alone, the number of visits were 2.5 times the normal rate.

He added that they have yet to get figures for Carlingford.ie, but he would expect those to be quite high also. Along with this there was over 3,000 lands on the Visit Louth blog on the Visit Louth website, again a multiple of what would normally be the case, Mr McEvoy explained.

Highlighting the international potential, Mr McEvoy further added that 80% of the online engagement was from overseas, 50% was with the US and 20% was from the UK.

Louth County Council are looking at ideas on how to use the opportunity created from the visit, Mr McEvoy said, and shared one idea with the meeting, which was the creation of a “Biden Trail”, which could be looking at the places President Biden visited and building a programme around those.

The organisation of the events during President Biden's visit by groups including Louth County Council, An Garda Síochána and Dundalk Tidy Towns was congratulated by councillors at the April meeting.

Cllr Andrea McKevitt and Cathaoirleach Conor Keelan congratulated the local authority for its work, with councillors including Cllr Kevin Meenan and Cllr Michelle Hall singling out Director of Services Paddy Donnelly, and his staff for their work.

Cllr Maeve Yore also congratulated An Garda Síochána and Dundalk Tidy Towns for the work carried out by both. Cllr John Reilly added that the Council did itself proud and congratulated it for the work and preparation it carried out for the visit.