Museums and galleries in the Republic welcomed more visitors last year than they did in the pre-Covid era, Fáilte Ireland said on Thursday, as the Irish tourism industry continued its recovery from the pandemic.
The tourism agency’s annual visitor attractions survey also reveals that the Phoenix Park Visitor Centre in Dublin was the busiest attraction overall in 2023, welcoming almost 2 million visitors.
The Republic’s most popular fee-charging attraction, meanwhile, was the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin 8, which was visited by close to 1.5 million people, while the Cliffs of Moher welcomed 1.3 million people last year.
Overall, the total number of visits to Irish attractions reached 98 per cent of pre-Covid 2019 levels in 2019, Fáilte Ireland said, up from 85 per cent in 2022.
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Museums and galleries, most of which are concentrated in Dublin, experienced more visitors for the first time since before the pandemic, up 10 per cent on 2019 levels.
However, Fáilte Ireland said every category of visitor attraction – from historic sites to heritage, leisure and theme parks – saw an improvement on 2022.
The State agency said the share of international visitors attending Irish attractions continued to grow in 2023 with Dublin hosting the largest proportion of visitors from abroad at 68 per cent while Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands experienced the biggest annual jump, from 21 per cent of the total in 2022 to 32 per cent last year.
“Our visitor attractions play a crucial role in strengthening Ireland’s appeal as a destination and provides visitors with the opportunity to fully experience our country’s distinctive culture, heritage and history,” said Mary Stack, head of visitor attractions at Fáilte Ireland. “With popular sites across all four of Fáilte Ireland’s regional brands – the Wild Atlantic Way, Ireland’s Ancient East, Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands, and Dublin – these attractions also encourage visitors to explore further and extend their trips beyond the peak season.”
The Irish tourism sector experienced a bumper year in 2023 but faced headwinds in 2024, an industry event in Dublin heard on Wednesday.
In advance of its annual conference, the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation (ITIC) said activity remained 6 per cent below its pre-Covid levels, two years on from the start of the easing of the pandemic.
Tourism and adjacent businesses are grappling with still-elevated costs and labour shortages, the conference heard, while the impasse over the passenger cap at Dublin Airport continues to cast a pall of uncertainty over the sector’s growth prospects for next year.
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