Tourism Ireland revealed today that preliminary results for 2006 show that 8.8 million visitors came to the island of Ireland this year, up 8.5% on 2006.
Visitor numbers from all of the country's key markets are set to exceed forecasts, with a record five million plus visitors from the UK this year, up 4% on the previous year. Visitors from the rest of Europe are set to jump by 17% to 2.3 million while numbers from North America are set to top one million for the first time since 2000 - an increase of 11%.
Tourism Ireland says that revenue from these visitors is forecast to come in at €4.2 billion for 2006, an increase of 6.4% on 2005.
John O'Donoghue, the Minister for Arts, Sports and Tourism, said that despite many shocks and challenges, tourism had shown sustained growth in recent years. The Minister has given an increase of 9% in Budget allocations for tourism to bring total spend in the area to €154m.
Tourism Ireland's CEO Paul O'Toole says the agency's target next year is to grow visitor numbers to 9.3 million and revenue to €4.6 billion.
'In delivering that target, we believe that Mainland Europe and Great Britain will continue to be the strongest contributors to growth, followed by North America,' he said.
However, he warned that the demands of the marketplace continue to shift and that a number of factors could impinge on the ambitious growth targets. These include external challenges such as oil prices, currency fluctuations and global socio-political uncertainty.
'However a decline in our value for money rating and tourists' perceptions of a deterioration in the warmth of the Irish welcome and the beauty of our scenery are issues that we can and must tackle and will require a joined-up approach from all players in the tourism industry,' he added.
