Tourism levels fall in Ireland

Country:  Ireland

12 August 2009

New data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) shows that that the number of inbound visitors to Ireland fell 15.1% in June, compared to the corresponding month last year. The news is bad for buy-to-let investors who own property in Ireland, and are dependant on international visitors to boost occupancy rate and rental return.

CSO’s research reveals an abrupt fall in the volume of UK and European visitors resulted in just 636,600 trips made to Ireland in June this year, a dramatic fall on the 750,000 or so trips made to the country in June last year.

Overall, visits to Ireland between January and June 2009 fell by almost 11% compared with the first half of 2008.

Additional information from the study also shows that the number of Irish residents travelling overseas in June 2009 also fell, down 7.6% to 709,900, which contributed towards an overall 9.8% fall in overseas travel by Irish citizens during the first half of this year.

See Also:   Ireland, Marc Da-Silva, Overseas property investor news