A new three-year tourism plan for the Dublin region was unveiled today.
The plan aims to attract one million more visitors to the city and county by 2010, increasing revenue by 8 per cent annually to €1.8 billion.
Last year the capital was rated the seventh most popular tourist destination in Europe, compared to previous rankings as third most popular.
Dublin Tourism's new promotional campaign, "Making It Happen", will target business travellers making short visits to the capital, in an attempt to regain its international and national tourist margin, by presenting the city as the gateway to Ireland.
Chief executive, Frank Magee said 4.6 million people visited Dublin last year and insisted he was optimistic the new targets would be met.
But Mr Magee said there were also a number of challenges including the decline in numbers of Irish people working in the tourist industry and pressures from an economic slowdown and competitiveness.
The campaign will seek to strengthen visitor experience by delivering a "customer charter" that will attempt to tackle weaknesses.
The charter will seek to highlight public transport inadequacies and disabled access obstacles, campaign for environmental improvements, enhance bus and street signage and improve training supply for foreign staff.