In 2018, overseas residents made a record 10.6 million trips to Ireland, with Britain estimating for a third of the total in spite of the Brexit insecurity.
As per the recent Central Statistics Office data, between January and December 2018, there were 10.6 million trips to Ireland, a growth of 6.9 percent on the previous year.
British residents accounted 3.8 million trips. That was slightly up (0.8 per cent) on 2017 but still under the 2016 peak.
The statistics show the huge growth markets related to the incoming visitors were mainland Europe and the United States.
Residents from Europe and Britain increased by 9.5 percent to 3.8 million as trips made by US and Canadian residents increased by 13.4 percent to 2.4 million. Trips to Ireland from other areas, in the meantime, increased 6.7 percent to 660,700.
At the same time the CSO said over 8.2 million Irish residents had indulged in overseas trips last year, up 4.2 percent every year, which was also the highest figure on record.
“Last year we saw another year of growth for Irish tourism which further underlined the value of the sector to the economy,” Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Shane Ross said.
“I am very encouraged that the growth we saw last year came from a number of markets. North America performed well as did Europe, with key markets such as Germany and Italy growing strongly,” he said.
