Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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1119. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if the tourism industry will grow in 2016 having regard to recent experiences; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9572/16]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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Tourism continues to contribute significantly to Ireland's economic recovery.  CSO figures for 2015 show that there were over 8.64 million overseas visits to Ireland, an increase of 13.7% on 2014. The total associated revenue from our overseas visitors (excluding carrier receipts) amounted to over €4.2 billion – an increase of over 18% on 2014.

The domestic market also performed strongly in 2015 with the number of domestic holiday trips up 6.5% and expenditure on holiday trips up 10.2%.

In terms of the outlook for this year, the tourism industry sentiment remains very positive.  Tourism Ireland's targets for 2016 are to grow overseas visit numbers by a further 4%, and grow the associated revenue by 5%. The most recently published tourism figures by the CSO are for the first quarter of 2016 and show growth of 16.6% in overseas visits compared to the same period in 2015.  Accordingly, while it is early in the season, the figures are very encouraging and suggest that we are on target to achieve further good growth in 2016.

I look forward to working with the tourism agencies and the tourism industry to ensure that the strong growth in Irish tourism witnessed in recent years continues and that all the necessary foundations are in place to achieve the targets set in the tourism policy statement "People, Place and Policy - Growing Tourism to  2025".