10.3% increase in number of tourists

TOURISM is bouncing back from last year’s downturn because of the foot-and-mouth scare and the September 11 terrorist attacks on the US.

Official figures show that 1,147,000 people visited Ireland in the first three months of the year - a 10.3% increase on January-March 2001. The improved performance pushed up foreign tourism earnings by 5.8%. “I am not surprised,” said Tourism Minister John O’Donoghue.

“I had expected the first quarter to be strong and the figures confirm that, although the first quarter only represents about 16% of annual visitor

numbers.”

The fall in US visitor numbers accelerated post-September 11.

Numbers were down from 161,000 for January-March 2001 to 134,000 for the first three months of this year - a 17.6% drop.

By contrast, British visitor numbers grew by 14%, with continental visitors showing a 6.4% gain.

Mr O’Donoghue said that even though the figures were inflated by the early advent of Easter, they were still impressive.

“They represent the determination of both the tourism agencies and the industry to start the year with a very strong campaign to recover ground lost in 2001,” he added.

According to the Central Statistics Office, 901,000 Irish people travelled abroad between January and March, an increase of 17% on the same period last year.

Mr O’Donoghue said despite the good start to the year, he fully recognised that 2002 was a challenging one for the tourism sector and that many individual businesses and sectors were experiencing difficulties. He expected to see the fruits in the coming months of the extra 3 million he had given for frontline marketing.

The medium to long-term outlook for the tourist industry remained bright. Provided we could maintain our international competitiveness in terms of pricing, access and the quality of our product, he was confident the industry could overcome present difficulties.