Tourism in Ireland returned to growth in 2011 after three “most horrific” years for the sector, the Irish Tourist Industry Confederation has said.
The number of overseas visitors increased by 7 per cent this year, the first increase since 2007 which was a record year for the tourism industry.
The recovery is largely due to an rise in visitors from the "big four" – Britain, the US, France and Germany – the countries from which 80 per cent of visitors to Ireland come.
Final figures for the end of this year are expected to show a 10 per cent increase visitors from continental Europe, an 8 per cent rise in numbers coming from North American, and a 5 per cent rise in British tourists.
Growth was strongest in the earlier part of the year, with a dip in the last three months, which the confederation attributes to the debt ceiling crisis in the US and growing uncertainty over the future of the euro.
While the 2011 figures indicated a turnaround for the industry, they followed several years of declining visitor numbers, confederation chief executive Eamonn McKeon said.
"2008, 2009 and 2010 were the three most horrific years the industry has ever experienced."
In 2007 overseas visitor numbers reached just over 7.74 million, by 2010 this figure had fallen to 5.86 million. The final figure for the end of this year is expected to stand at 6.29 million.
The Government's decision to reduce the VAT rate from 13.5 per cent to 9 per cent on most labour intensive tourism services was "crucial" to the industry's recovery in helping to restore competitiveness, confederation chairman John Healy said.
The industry had also shown it could be a significant contributor to the economic recovery of the country as a whole, with 6,000 tourism jobs created in the last six months, Mr Healy said.
