Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

The Gathering primarily relates to next year. Inbound visitor number figures for last year were favourable. There was an increase of 6% on 2010 after several years of decline. To date this year we are behind target. We had targeted a 4% increase this year but so far there has been a 1% decrease in visitor numbers. This varies however. For example, there has been an increase from mainland Europe, a significant increase in some cases from Germany, France and the Nordic countries. There has also been an increase from the long-haul market. The figures from America are slightly down, by approximately 2%, but they have been improving in the past three months. Numbers from America were up by 1% on the same period last year. The figures from Britain are disappointing. For the first five months the number of visits from Britain were down by 2.3%, set against a 3% fall in the British market in general. There are fewer British people travelling on account of the ongoing recession there, but we are not losing market share. The March to May figures shows a 5.7% fall but we should not necessarily read too much into three month statistics for Britain. Overall the figures are down 2.3% to date this year and this wipes out the gains we are making from mainland Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

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