Some 6.3m foreign visitors travelled to Ireland from overseas in 2023, according to the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
The largest contingent of visitors was from Britain, with 2.4 million tourists travelling to Ireland in 2023 alone, making up 37.9% of all total visitors.
Of the 6.3 million visitors, 1.1 million people travelled from the US throughout the year, making up 18.3% of total recorded visitors in 2023.
This figure was followed by Germany with 7.1% of the total figure, or 0.4 million foreign visitors to Ireland.
The publication, which marks the first of the CSO’s new Inbound Tourism series, measures the numbers of non-Irish residents who depart the country via Irish airports and seaports.
In total, 20.6 million passengers departed Ireland via overseas routes in 2023 alone.
The majority of passengers left Ireland by air, with 94.4% choosing this method while 5.6% of passengers travelled by sea.
There were 6.3 million foreign visitors to Ireland in 2023https://t.co/CSvplsJv5Z#CSOIreland #Ireland #Tourism #Travel #Holidays #LoveIreland #OverseasTravel #AirAndSeaTravel #Aviation #InboundTourism #HouseholdTravel #TravelSurvey pic.twitter.com/43g7Qpp1hr
— Central Statistics Office Ireland (@CSOIreland) June 19, 2024
More than 40% of visitors travelled to Ireland for holidays or leisure, with 2.5m visitors coming to Ireland in 2023 for this reason.
The statistics also noted 2.3m visitors came to Ireland to visit family or friends, the second most frequent reason for passengers coming to Ireland.
The visitors stayed 51.1m nights in the country in 2023 alone.
The holidaymakers stayed an average of 6.8 nights in the country, spending an average of €1,438 on their trips. In total, this amounted to €3.6bn.
The total estimated expenditure of the visitors was €7.3bn. Of this, €1.9bn was spent on travel fares, €0.3bn on prepayments such as car hire, pre-booked tickets and non-accommodation items, €2.3bn on accommodation and €2.8bn on day-to-day spending.
The statistics also showed the typical visitor spent €302 on their fare, €40 on prepayments, €375 on accommodation and €454 on day-to-day expenditure in 2023 alone.