Ireland has scooped a major travel award in New York, for the third year in a row.

Ireland was named “best destination: Europe” at the annual Travel Weekly annual Readers Choice Awards – beating off tough competition from England, France, Italy, Germany and Spain.

Travel Weekly is the leading weekly newspaper for American travel agents and travel professionals and some 15,000 of its readers voted in the various categories earlier this year.

Now in their 14th year, the Readers Choice Awards represent the “best of the best in travel” according to Travel Weekly.

Ireland also won this award in 2014 and 2015.

Niall Gibbons, Tourism Ireland’s CEO, said: “We are delighted that Ireland has been singled out for this award in the United States. Travellers nowadays have tremendous choice, which makes it more important than ever for us to ensure the island of Ireland stands out from other destinations – so this award is really good news, coming at the end of another record-breaking year for Irish tourism from the US and as we prepare to kick off another extensive promotional drive in 2017, in this all-important market.

“2016 will be the fourth record year in a row for visitor numbers to the island of Ireland from North America. By the end of this year, we will have welcomed about 1.6 million American and Canadian visitors, delivering revenue of €1.4 billion for the economy throughout 2016.”