Fáilte Ireland has teamed up with Google and social networking website Facebook in a bid to help the country's tourism businesses enhance their "online presence".

Brian Brady of Google Ireland and Andrew Weld-Moore, online sales operations manager at Facebook, spoke at the tourism agency's annual e-business conference on 14 September.

Under the title of 'Engage, Explore and Ignite Your Online Presence', Brady told delegates that 79 per cent of Irish tourism business websites were not optimised for mobile use.

Brady revealed that more than 50 per cent of new internet connections currently come from mobile devices, with the number of mobile internet users to overtake desktop users by 2013.

Meanwhile, Weld-Moore said that more than 30 billion pieces of content are shared across Facebook each month and that the site was crucial for word-of-mouth recommendations.

Ahead of the conference, Fáilte Ireland head of operations Kevin Moriarty said: "The majority of travellers now research, plan and book their holidays through the internet and tourism businesses have no option but to engage with new technology.

"In short, if you're not online, you're dead to potential customers."