Growth of overseas visitors to Ireland down sharply in January

Source: Xinhua | 2020-02-27

The growth rate of overseas visitors to Ireland in the first month of this year witnessed a sharp drop compared with the same month of last year, according to data released by the country's Central Statistics Office (CSO) on Wednesday.

In January 2020, the number of overseas visitors to Ireland grew by only 0.5 percent to 654,500 compared with over 11 percent in January 2019.

Of all the overseas visitors who came to Ireland in January 2020, those from Britain accounted for 266,900, up by 0.1 percent year-on-year, whereas residents from other European countries amounted to 232,000, up 0.2 percent year-on-year.

In January, the country received 108,400 visitors from the United States and Canada, up 2.9 percent over a year ago, whereas those from other parts of the world stood at 47,200, up 1 percent year-on-year.

The CSO figures also showed that the total number of overseas trips made by Irish residents stood at 548,500 in the first month of this year, up 2.2 percent compared with a year ago.