Irish trips abroad exceed visits to Ireland

Irish people made 1.57 million visits overseas in the first quarter of 2007 compared with 1.48 million visits to Ireland by tourists from abroad.

We're out-spending our visitors too - Irish people splashed out a whopping €1.1bn on their holidays between January and March, whereas our visitors spent €819m here.

This is the first time since the Central Statistics Office's quarterly series began in 1990 that overseas visits by Irish people exceeds the number of visits to Ireland.

The number of Irish visits abroad between January and March - at 1.57 million - was an increase of 17% on the corresponding period in 2006.

New Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism Seamus Brennan said the figures show that revenue being generated by overseas visitors is increasing at a higher rate than the visitor numbers themselves.

He said it was heartening to be assuming responsibility for tourism at a time of great optimism in the industry.

“While I know that it will be challenging to maintain the record-breaking momentum of 2006, the figures published today confirm that Ireland’s tourism sector continues to perform very impressively in 2007,” said Mr Brennan.

“I am delighted that the figures for the first quarter of 2007 show visitor numbers up by over 6% on the corresponding period in 2006 and the associated revenue up by almost 12%. Both of these figures are ahead of the industry targets for the year.”