By Business & Finance 
Tourism Ireland says 10.6 million people will have visited Ireland by the end of this year, in which Ireland is enjoying its best year for tourism on record.
This has also been met with tourist spending of €5.8 billion (+5% growth) and a 2.5% growth in overseas visitors from the period January 2017 to September 2017.
Tourism Ireland CEO Niall Gibbons commented on the findings: “I am pleased to see growth in overseas visitor revenue of +5% in the period January-September this year, driven by +2.5% growth in overseas visitors. Within the total number of overseas visitors to Ireland, holiday visitors grew by +6% – that’s 218,000 additional holiday visitors.“
He continued: “The decline in visitor numbers from Britain continues to be a concern (-6.5% in the first nine months of the year). The fall in the value of sterling has made holidays and short breaks here more expensive for British visitors and, at the same time, made Britain more affordable for visitors from many of our top markets. This year, Tourism Ireland has placed a greater focus on our ‘culturally-curious’ audience in Britain, because they are less impacted by currency fluctuations. However, competitiveness and value for money messages remain more important than ever right in Britain now.
“We’ve just launched our marketing plans for 2018, which will see us build on this year’s growth to deliver €6 billion (+5%) in overseas tourism revenue to the island of Ireland, by welcoming 10.8 million visitors.”
The Central Statistics Office’s (CSO) Q3 tourism figures can be seen here.
