Overseas visitors voting with their feet as international numbers continue to climb
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The CSO today issued Tourism and Travel results for the period January - September 2014 with very positive findings: • Overseas trips to Ireland up 9% in the year to date, 5.9 million trips, half a million more than the same period in 2013. • Double digit growth from North America for the second year in a row, up 14% year to date. Over a million trips so far this year. • Britain grew by almost 9% (8.8%) to 2.4 million over the first nine months of the year, this is the second year of growth from Britain, indicating the recovery has bedded in. • Trips from Mainland Europe are also growing strongly, up 7% to 2.1 million in the year to date. • Other long haul markets have generated 11% more trips in the year to date, 370,000 trips so far this year. Welcoming today’s figures, Fáilte Ireland CEO Shaun Quinn emphasised: “While international publications such as ‘The Lonely Planet’ have recently voted for Ireland as a top travel destination, overseas visitors, too, have been voting with their feet in ever greater numbers. The growth from America is particularly impressive and, having met with top US travel operators at our US Expo in County Clare earlier this week, Fáilte Ireland believes that this American enthusiasm for Ireland will continue into 2015. “The recent retention of the 9% VAT rate in the Budget will allow us to continue to offer visitors a good value and high quality holiday but we need to avoid complacency and we need to keep focussed and remain competitive. As initiatives such as Fáilte Ireland’s ‘The Gathering’ and ‘Wild Atlantic Way’ have demonstrated, we also need big bold and ambitious ideas to attract further overseas visitors and Fáilte Ireland will be using every opportunity we can to identify further growth potential and to ensure the sector provides the additional revenue and jobs which we believe it can certainly deliver.”
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