Commenting on today’s figures from the CSO for overseas visitors to Ireland for January to November, Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland, said:
“Today’s figures indicate that this was the best ever January to November period for overseas visitors to Ireland, with almost 9 million arrivals, representing an increase of +11% – 884,400 additional overseas visitors when compared with the first eleven months of 2015. It is clear that 2016 will be another record-breaking year for Irish tourism.”
Niall Gibbons continued:
“We have seen exceptional results from North America for January to November – up more than +18% on the same eleven-month period in 2015. I also welcome the strong increase in British visitors (over +11%). And Mainland Europe has also turned in another excellent performance (almost +9%), with important markets like Spain, France and Germany all recording good growth.
“Tourism Ireland has a number of late-season campaigns under way right now, to kick-start our promotional effort for 2017. The aim is to grow overseas tourism revenue in 2017 by +4.5%, to €5.7 billion for the island of Ireland.”
Notes To Editors
- Tourism Ireland is the organisation responsible for promoting the island of Ireland overseas as a leading holiday destination.
- Tourism is the island of Ireland’s largest indigenous industry; responsible for in excess of 4% of GNP in the Republic of Ireland and employing approximately 220,000 people.
- By the end of 2016, we will have welcomed approximately 10.5 million overseas visitors to the island of Ireland, delivering revenue of about €5.4 billion.
- Tourism Ireland’s international website is www.ireland.com, 29 market sites available in 11 language versions around the world, which attracted more than 16.6 million visitors in 2015.
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