merrion street

Tourism Minister Michael Ring today welcomed the 6% increase in overseas visits to Ireland this year.

Minister Ring also welcomed yesterday’s CSO data showing an 8% increase in employment in accommodation and food services over the past 12 months.

Speaking after the CSO published its latest figures, Minister Ring said:

The figures are very encouraging for the tourism industry and suggest again that The Gathering is delivering more overseas visitors. I would like to thank the thousands of volunteers throughout the country who have organised and helped out with Gathering events and brought a great sense of community and pride back to parishes and towns.

• Overall trips to Ireland for the first seven months of 2013 were up by 6% compared to the corresponding period in 2012. There were 3,904,400 overseas visits to Ireland during the seven-month period;
• Visits from North America were up by 18.6% for the seven months with a total of 671,600 visits;
• Visits from Mainland Europe were up by 6% in January–July 2013 compared to the same period in 2012 (1,423,700 visits);
• The number of visits from Britain for the first seven months of 2013 were up by 1.4% compared to the same period in 2012 (1,579,300 visits);
• For Other (i.e. long-haul) markets, there was a 6.9% increase in visit numbers in the first seven months of 2013 (229,800 visits).