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Ireland's tourism on track for another record year

Xinhua, November 25, 2016 Adjust font size:

Ireland has seen an increase of 11.6 percent in overseas visits for the first 10 months of this year, compared to the same period of last year, according to official figures on Thursday.

The figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) showed visits from mainland Europe grew by 9.8 percent for January to October.

The CSO figures also showed that north America registered an increase of 18 percent for January to October while visits from Britain were up by 11.9 percent during the same period.

Thursday's figures indicate that this was the best ever month of October for Irish tourism, with more than 830,000 arrivals recorded. It was also the best ever January to October period for overseas visitors to Ireland, with almost 8.3 million arrivals, 858,000 additional overseas visitors when compared with the first ten months of 2015. It is clear that 2016 will be another record-breaking year for Irish tourism.

Ireland estimates that by year's end some nine million tourists will have visited Ireland during the course of 2016.

"That will be a 50 percent increase on the levels recorded just six seasons ago," said Shaun Quinn, chief executive of Failte Ireland, the country's national tourism development authority.

"However, unexpected events during the year, such as Brexit, serve as a warning that we can take nothing in life for granted and are a good antidote to any creeping complacency in the tourism sector," he said.

"Given that such volatility can occur in two of our biggest overseas visitor markets underlines the reality that future growth is not guaranteed and must be fought for. For the tourism sector, this will mean an increased focus on competitiveness and a greater focus on growing visitors from Europe where the potential for many more visitors and greater revenue exists," he added. Endit