There was a significant drop in the number of trips by British people to Ireland in July, when compared with the previous July, according to the latest data from the Central Statistics Office.
Overall, trips to Ireland fell by 8.1 per cent to 835,300 in July 2008 compared with July 2007. Visits by British residents fell by more than 17 per cent to 341,800. Trips by US residents dropped by 6.1 per cent and those from the rest of Europe fell by 0.3 per cent.
More than 4.5 million trips have been taken to Ireland so far in 2008 which is 0.4 per cent more than the same period in 2007. This contrasts with a growth of just over 4 per cent in 2007 compared with the previous year.
The number of overseas trips taken by Irish residents continued to grow in July but the margin of growth has fallen when compared with previous years. The number of trips increased by less than 6 per cent in July, compared with July 2007.
To date this year, Irish residents have made 5.4 per cent more trips abroad. However, the increase is much less than the period between 2006 and 2007 when the number of trips grew by more than 12 per cent.
