Millions of tourists flocking to Ireland

More than four and a half million trips were made to Ireland in the first seven months of the year, it emerged today.

Figures from the Central Statistics Office showed that in July alone, 909,600 overseas trips were made here, an increase of more than 70,000 on the previous year.

Meanwhile, Irish residents took more than 808,900 holidays last month, up 30,800 on July 2006.

Tourism Minister Seamus Brennan said the data show the state is on target for another record year in tourism.

“We have a top class and varied tourism product and the figures show that overseas visitors continue to be attracted to it,” he said.

“The figures support the view that the weather is not a major factor influencing overseas visits to Ireland.”

In the year up to the end of July, Irish residents made 4,432,800 trips abroad, but during the same time attracted 4,526,000 visitors – up 4.3% on the previous year.

Tourists included more than 2.2m Britons, almost 1.5m Europeans, 621,000 Americans, and 173,100 people from other areas.

Despite visits from Britain going up 20,400 last month, overall the figure was slightly down (1.5%) on the corresponding seven months of 2006.

However, holidaymakers from mainland Europe were up by over 15% and from America up by over 3%.

“The number of visitors coming to Ireland from all of our major markets were well up on the corresponding month last year,” continued Mr Brennan.

“I am particularly encouraged by the fact that monthly numbers from Great Britain were up by over 5% compared to July last year.

“This reverses the trend for the early months of this year and is particularly impressive in view of the severe weather conditions encountered in Britain in July.

“While complacency about Ireland’s competitiveness as a tourism destination is to be avoided, these figures show that the tourism sector has every reason to maintain its confidence for this year’s season.”