Figures released by the Irish Central Statistics Office provided some good news for the Irish tourism industry with a significant growth in the number of Ireland vacations so far this year.
More than six million people travelled to Ireland in the first nine months of the year. In total 413,800 visitors made trips to Ireland which represents a 6.8% increase on the same period in 2012.
Over 2.1 million of those trips to Ireland were made between August and October, which was 191,100 (8.9%) higher than the figure for the same quarter of last year.
More than one million trips were made by visitors from North America in the first nine months of 2013, which was up 12.7% on the same period of last year.
Almost 250,000 trips to Ireland were made by visitors from the United Kingdom, which represented an increase of 4.8% on the number of Ireland vacations from across the Irish Seas.
Meanwhile, the rest of Europe accounted for 2.15 million of the trips between January and October, an increase of 5.3%. Overseas trips made by Irish residents reached 5.49 million during the same nine-month period.