CSO Statistics: Wild Atlantic the way to go for increasing number of tourists
The figures, contained in the Central Statistics Office (CSO) snapshot report for 2014, show tourist numbers have steadily climbed since 2011, along with the amount of money they spend.
Last year, about 7.6m tourists visited the country, compared with 7m in 2013 and 6.5m in 2011.
While the length of stay for visitors has fallen marginally, the spend grew by 8.8% last year, from €3.2bn in 2013 to €3.5bn in 2014.
Of this, over half was spent by tourists for holiday/leisure/recreation purposes, 22.1% by those travelling to visit friends and relatives, 16.5% by business travellers, and the remaining 9.9% by those travelling for “other” reasons.
The most important overseas markets in terms of spending within Ireland in 2014 were the US and Canada (26.4%) and Britain (24.9%).
While the number of Irish people taking holidays is on the up — from 6.5m in 2013 to 6.6m last year — it is some way behind the 6.9m figure for 2011.
By contrast, more and more people are engaging in ‘staycations’ and spending more of their money at home.
In 2014, Irish residents took almost 7.4m domestic trips. The average length of stay for domestic trips was 2.9 nights, resulting in a total of 21.2m bed nights.
Holidays accounted for almost half of all domestic trips (49%), while a third (33%) were to visit friends or relatives.
The CSO figures reveal that some €852m was spent by people holidaying at home, while a further €53.8m was spent by people travelling to domestic sporting events.
This compares with €840m and €43.5m, respectively, for 2013.
Last year, about 26.4m passengers passed through Ireland’s five main airports — an increase of 6.9% on 2013.
However, this figure still falls some way short of the 31m in 2007.
Just over 217,000 commercial flights were handled by Ireland’s main airports in 2014.
Dublin accounted for 79.5% of all flights (172,556) while Cork handled 9.% of all flights (19,579).
Dublin airport accounted for 73.4% of all passengers passing through Ireland’s main airports in 2006. This had increased to 82.2% by 2014.
However, the CSO figures show that rising passenger numbers have largely bypassed Cork Airport, where numbers have fallen every year since 2008.
In 2014, a total of 2.1m passengers went through the airport, compared to 3.2m in 2008.
By contrast, Shannon, Dublin and Knock airports have all recorded rising passenger numbers in recent years.
However, writing in this newspaper earlier this month, managing director of Cork Airport Niall McCarthy said that, with the recent announcements of new routes and the securing of transatlantic flights, a return to passenger growth is expected next year.
