Commenting on new figures published by the CSO for overseas visitors to Ireland for January, 2019, Tourism Ireland CEO Niall Gibbons said, "[These new] CSO figures represent a very positive start to 2019, as we roll out our promotional programme around the world. I am pleased to see that overseas visitor numbers increased by 11.2% in January, 2019 - almost 66,000 additional overseas arrivals when compared with January, 2018. However, it is early days yet - arrivals in the month of January represent around 6% of total annual arrivals.
"Arrivals from North America grew by 12.3% in January, an extra 11,500 US and Canadian visitors. We’ve also seen very good results from Mainland Europe, up 12.2% on January last year, with particularly strong performances from France, Germany, Spain and Italy. Visitor numbers from Britain grew by 10.4%, and from Australia and emerging markets by 9.4%.
"Full Swing"
Gibbons added, "Tourism Ireland’s campaigns are in full swing around the world to build on the success of 2018. Our promotions will receive a tremendous boost next month, with our Global Greening initiative for St. Patrick’s Day set to be even bigger and better than ever before. St. Patrick’s Day traditionally marks the real start of the tourism season for us and we will be taking every opportunity to capitalise on Ireland’s heightened profile. Our aim is to grow overseas tourism revenue this year to €6.5 billion for the island of Ireland."
© 2019 Hospitality Ireland – your source for the latest industry news. Article by Dave Simpson. Click subscribe to sign up for the Hospitality Ireland print edition.
