Some 430,000 visitors take overnight trip to State in February

More than 430,000 visitors took overnight trips to the Republic in February, according to data on tourism from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

The bulk of visitors to the country were from Great Britain at 46 per cent, with the US accounting for just under 11 per cent, the Inbound Tourism report for February said.

Some 6.5 per cent of the visitors departing the State in February were from Spain and Portugal.

“The results show that among the 1,288,500 passengers departing Ireland on overseas routes in February 2024, some 433,300 (33.6 per cent) were foreign visitors completing their trips,” said Gregg Patrick, statistician in the tourism and travel division.

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The balance of the passengers were made up of Irish residents at just over 59 per cent, and foreign same-day visitors accounting for the remaining 7.3 per cent. The latter included Northern Ireland residents who were departing via an airport or seaport in the Republic.

Of the reasons given for visiting Ireland the most common was to visit family and friends, with more than a third of visitors citing that as their purpose.

In total visitors stayed almost 2.7 million nights in the country, at an average of 6.2 nights. They spent a total of €374.4 million, equating to an average of €864 per trip. Expenditure included hotel costs, travel and day-to-day expenses.

“More of the visitors stayed primarily in hotels (47.3 per cent) than in any other accommodation type, and the mean cost of their visit was €864, comprising €209 on fare, €18 on prepayments, €264 on accommodation, and €373 on day-to-day expenditure,” said Mr Patrick.

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