The number of US visitors to Ireland jumped by 15 per cent in February despite a weakening dollar, according to new figures released today.
The figures released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) also show a 7 per cent increase visitors from North America over the first two months of the year, compared to the same period in 2007. US residents made 43,700 visits to Ireland in February, accounting for 9 per cent of all visits here from abroad.
British residents accounted 55 per cent of all overseas visits to the Republic in February, with 259,800 trips here. This represents an increase of 2 per cent compared to February 2007.
Trips to Ireland by other Europeans fell by just under 4 per cent to 147,600, while trips from other countries increased by almost 38 per cent to 17,200. Overall, trips to Ireland totalled 471,300 in February, which is just over 2 per cent more than the 460,600 recorded in February 2007.
The number of overseas trips made by Irish people increased by 11 per cent in February, according to the CSO figures. A total of 547,600 trips abroad were made in February, compared to 494,600 in February 2007.
In January and February combined, Irish people made 1,096,000 trips abroad compared to 908,300 trips to Ireland by overseas visitors. The number of overseas visits to Ireland is up by almost 1 per cent in the first two months of the year, while the number of US visitors has jumped by almost 7 per cent over in January and February.
Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism Séamus Brennan said the figures were “encouraging” and show Ireland is continuing to attract overseas visitors in large numbers “despite difficult market conditions and economic uncertainty in some of our key overseas markets”
“I am particularly pleased to see that the number of visitors from North America is up by almost 7% compared to the corresponding two month period last year,” Mr Brennan said.
“This is notwithstanding concerns relating to the relative weakness of the US dollar. Similarly visitors from Britain are also up although sterling has weakened against the euro."
He said 2008 would “certainly be very challenging for the tourism industry” today’s figures provide “some optimism for the year ahead”.
