The CSO today published ‘Tourism Trends 2008’. This report is the second in its series and brings together tourism statistics from a variety of sources to provide a useful reference source to those interested in the Tourism sector. Some of the key points highlighted in the report are:

Inbound Tourism

• Overseas trips to Ireland increased by just over 19% to 7,839,000 between 2004 and 2008. The average length of stay in 2008 was just over 8 nights.

• The number of visits to Ireland by residents of Great Britain would appear to have peaked at 4,060,000 in 2006. In 2008 the number of visits was 3,872,000, 4.6% less than in 2006.

Domestic Tourism

• Irish residents made 8,339,000 trips involving at least one overnight stay in the Republic of Ireland in 2008, up 19% from 2004.

• Holiday travel during January to March grew by nearly 56% between 2004 and 2008 and in percentage terms, this was twice the growth in travel during July to September in the same period.

Outbound Tourism

• Spain was the most popular holiday destination for Irish travellers in 2008. This was followed by Great Britain, France and the United States of America.

• In total, just over 8 million foreign trips were taken by Irish residents in 2008 and this increased by 47.2% since 2004. However, much of this growth took place prior to 2007 and there was just a slight increase between 2007 and 2008.

Transportation

• Ireland’s six main airports handled just over 31 million passengers in 2008 while a total of 2,855,257 passengers passed through Ireland’s ferry ports.

• Nine out of every ten flights entering Ireland in 2008 originated in the UK and the remainder of the EU27.

Accommodation

• Price levels for accommodation services in Ireland fell from July in 2008 according to the Consumer Price Index. In the three years previously, price levels did not begin to fall until September.

• Room occupancy in hotels in Ireland fell from 64% in 2007 to 58% in 2008.

Tourism and the Economy

• Total earnings from visitors to Ireland were €4,781m in 2008 which was down slightly from 2007. Irish residents spent €7,583m on foreign travel in 2008, up by nearly 11% from 2007.

• The Consumer Price Index shows that in Ireland for the period 2000 to 2008, the price of package holidays increased by 16.3% and those in restaurants and licensed premises increased by 32.6%.

Activities and Attractions

• The popularity of Water Sports and Hiking/Walking as an activity for domestic holidays almost doubled between 2004 and 2008. Hiking/Hillwalking doubled in popularity as an activity for visitors to Ireland during the same period.

• The Irish people and the scenery were cited by visitors as the biggest attractions of Ireland as a holiday destination in 2008 while the cost of living and the weather were the biggest drawbacks.

International Comparisons

• Residents of the Netherlands, Cyprus, Belgium and Greece preferred longer foreign holidays (15-28 nights) than other nationalities while residents of Finland and Croatia were more likely to take trips lasting up to 7 nights.

• The latest available tourism data for the EU27 show that for 2007, Cyprus and Malta have the highest tourism expenditure relative to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), while Romania, Finland and Germany reported the lowest.

Tourism Trends 2008 may be downleaded free of charge from on our website www.cso.ie

Hard copies, priced at €12.00, are available from:

Central Statistics Office, Information Section, Skehard Road, Cork,

Government Publications Sales Office, Sun Alliance House, Molesworth Street, Dublin 2,
or through any bookseller.

For more information contact:

Tourism and Transport Section
Central Statistics Office, Cork

Phone: Locall 1890 313 414/(021) 453 5120/(021) 453 5625
Fax: (021) 453 5799
Internet: www.cso.ie
E-mail: tourism@cso.ie

27 Novemver 2009

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