OECD to remove ‘misleading’ Irish tourist statistics from published reports

The OECD has committed to issuing a formal correction to its tourism report in August 2026
The 32pc decline figure resulted from comparing incompatible CSO survey methodologies
Dublin Airport passenger numbers increased by more than 10pc between 2019 and 2025
Hotel bed spaces more than doubled from 147,883 to 359,250 during the same period
The Visual Capitalist graphic had been shared across multiple social media platforms generating extensive discussion

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has confirmed it will issue a formal correction to its Tourism Trends and Policies 2026 report following the identification of a statistical error that placed Ireland second globally for tourist arrival declines. The OECD has been working with Ireland’s Central Statistics Office since early July to address the discrepancy, which showed a 32pc reduction in tourist numbers between 2019 and 2025.

The error originated from changes implemented by the CSO at the start of 2023, when the organisation replaced its previous survey methodology with a single passenger survey featuring stricter sampling protocols. The old survey had been discontinued during the Covid pandemic, making direct comparisons between the 2019 and 2025 figures statistically invalid. Dublin Airport recorded 36.4 million passengers in 2025, representing an increase of more than 10pc over 2019 figures, while hotel occupancy rates remained at 78pc despite the number of available bed spaces rising from 147,883 in 2019 to 359,250 in 2025.

The misleading statistic had been widely circulated across social media platforms, with a Reddit submission to r/Infographics receiving more than 4,050 upvotes and generating discussions that attributed the supposed decline to accommodation costs and immigration patterns. The Visual Capitalist website had published the data in a graphic ranking countries by tourist arrival changes, placing Ireland second only to Israel. The OECD will publish its correction in August, and the CSO has confirmed that reconstruction of comparable historical data is not possible due to the discontinuation of the original survey methodology.

Aaron Costello from the Tourism and Travel section of the CSO shared the 32pc figure is misleading because it compares two different surveys rather than showing a real fall in passenger numbers.