According to figures released recently by the Irish Central Statistics Office (CSO), the total number of overseas trips to Ireland has seen an increase of up to 10% over the peak summer months. During the period between June and August 2014, the amount of trips to and vacations in Ireland increased by almost 9.7% to 2,484,000. This marked an overall increase of 219,200 compared to the same period in 2013.
The proportion of visitors originating from North America rose to 516,700 which marks an increase of almost 18% while the number of those visiting from across the Irish Sea in the the UK were up to 910,50, an increase of 3.5%.
Those visitors emanating from continental Europe increased by as much as 11.2% to 883,700, with visitors from the rest of the world accounting for 13.4%.
The number of trips made by Irish citizens overseas was only showed a slight increase by up to 2,180,700, following a sharp rise earlier in 2014.
Tourism Ireland’s chief executive, Niall Gibbons, welcomed the positive news regarding the increased tourist figures and stated:
“Today’s CSO figures are very strong – confirming growth of 9.4% in overseas visitors to Ireland for the January to August period, almost 450,000 additional visitors when compared with the same eight-month period in 2013. Given that overseas tourism business accounts for almost 60% of all tourism revenue, this is good news indeed, with the increase in visitor numbers from overseas helping to boost employment around the country.”