Overseas visits to Ireland were up by 7.1% for first 10 months of 2018, compared to the same period last year, with just over 9.1 million overseas visitors arriving to Ireland from January to October this year.
As reported by Fáilte Ireland, the latest CSO figures on overseas travel show:
- Overseas visitors to Ireland increased by 7.3% for the month of October and by 7.1% for the year to October. This resulted in 600,000 extra visitors to Ireland over the same ten-month period last year.
- British visitors increased by 1% to 3.17 million visitors over the corresponding period last year.
- North American visitors grew by 13.7% to 2.1 million.
- Mainland Europe increased by 9.6% to 3.31 million visitors, with German (+19.8%) and Italian visitors (+10.9%) performing the strongest.
- Visitors from all other areas (570,000) grew by 6.3%.
"Stellar Growth"
Commenting on the figures, Fáilte Ireland CEO Paul Kelly said, "We are coming to the end of what has been the best year ever for the Irish tourism industry. This year the sector has again made another significant increase in its contribution to the Irish economy, and I’m delighted to see such stellar growth continuing into October. Feedback from the industry is that October has been a particularly strong month in terms of performance and, at Fáilte Ireland, we are pleased to see this growth as we are working hard to extend the tourism season."
© 2018 Hospitality Ireland – your source for the latest industry news. Article by Dave Simpson. Click subscribe to sign up for the Hospitality Ireland print edition.
