- Inbound tourism up 11.6pc
- Outbound up 5.1pc
CSO figures show the best ever month of October and best ever January-October period for Irish tourism.
If the 10.6pc growth figure is sustained to year end, a record 10,585,000 visitors will have travelled to the island of Ireland in 2016.
In the ten months to the end of October 2016, the total number of Irish residents’ trips overseas increased by 5.1pc. See CSO figures here.
Niall Gibbons of Tourism Ireland said: “We have seen exceptional results from North America for January to October – up 18pc on the same ten-month period in 2015. I also welcome the strong increase in British visitors (almost +12pc). And Mainland Europe has also turned in another excellent performance (almost +10pc), with important markets like Spain, France, Germany and Benelux all recording good growth. Tourism Ireland has a number of late-season campaigns under way right now, to kick-start our promotional effort for 2017. Next week, we will outline our plans for 2017, when we will be pulling out all the stops to ensure that the island of Ireland continues to increase its share of the global travel business.”
