April sees recovery in tourism numbers following sharp first quarter drop

Tourism industry warns of misalignment with their own data

The average length of stay for foreign resident overnight visitors was 6.5 nights, up from an average of 6.4 nights in April 2024. Picture Larry Cummins

The number of foreign visitors arriving in Ireland last month was down 4% on April of last year, new data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) shows.

Some 528,100 tourists completed a trip to Ireland in April, with the largest contingent of visitors coming from Great Britain at 41%, followed by visitors from the United States at 18%.

The 4% drop is the smallest annual fall in foreign visitors since last October. The data from the CSO has been closely watched in recent months, with figures for January showing a 25% drop and those for February showing a fall of 30%.

Tourism industry figures have questioned the data, however, arguing that such significant drops in visitor numbers were not being witnessed by them on the ground.

Reacting to the data for April, Eoghan O'Mara Walsh, chief executive of the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation (ITIC), said the tourism numbers show a recovery from the sharp decline reported in the first quarter. 

"Nonetheless, there remains somewhat of a disconnect between the monthly CSO survey and industry data," he said. "The latter includes airports, hotels and attractions which reported a robust April compared to a year ago helped by a later Easter period. 

"Industry record bums on seats and heads on pillows as opposed to the CSO sample survey – there remains a misalignment of sorts between the two data sources but it is narrowing and this is welcome," he said.

The CSO data is based on in-person interviews with approximately 13,000 passengers departing Ireland through airports and ferry ports. April typically accounts for between 7% and 9% of total annual visitor figures. However, the CSO warned that because of the relatively small proportion of the total visitors accounted for in this period, external factors such as the date of Easter or other periodic events may have an observable impact.
The data for April shows that the most frequent reason for travelling to Ireland was for a holiday at 40%. Visitors stayed a total of 3.4 million nights in the country, a drop of 1% when compared with April 2024, and down 6% when compared with April 2023. The average length of stay for foreign resident overnight visitors was 6.5 nights, up from an average of 6.4 nights in April 2024, and down from 7.9 nights in April 2023.

Gregg Patrick, Statistician in the Tourism and Travel Division, said spending by tourists here, excluding their travel fares was was €375m. "Visitors from Great Britain accounted for €96m (26%) of this spend, Continental Europe for €134m (36%), North America for €121m(32%), and visitors from the Rest of the World for €25m (7%). Taken together, this represented a fall of 10% compared with April 2024, and a rise of 1% compared with April 2023," he said.