John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 193: To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the yearly increase in visitor numbers to Ireland this year over last year; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33506/11]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Recent figures from the Central Statistics Office show that trips to Ireland for the first eight months of 2011 were up by 11 % compared to the corresponding period in 2010. There were 4,481,800 overseas visitors to Ireland during the eight-month period. All of our main overseas markets showed an increase in visitor numbers for the eight month period with Mainland Europe up by 13 %, visitors from Britain up by 8.3%, visitors from North America up by 12.6 % and Other (i.e. long-haul) markets showing a 17.5 % increase. Even taking account of the disruption experienced in 2010 due to the Volcanic Ash cloud, this is significant and real growth.

These figures are very encouraging and show that the Irish tourism industry is on track to record growth in overseas visitors for the first time since 2007. The challenge now is to maintain this momentum for the remainder of this year and into 2012. In this regard, I am pleased that the additional cooperative marketing campaign between Tourism Ireland and airlines, ferry operators and travel agents that I recently announced is now underway and will seek to build on this growth. Furthermore, I will be launching Tourism Ireland's 2012 Marketing Plans at the end of this month.