Official figures show that a pick-up in the number of people travelling to Ireland continued in the third quarter of this year, but the number of Irish people travelling abroad fell sharply.
The Central Statistics Office said the number of trips made by overseas visitors between July and September was up 6.5% or almost 130,000 compared with the same period last year to just over 2.1 million.
Visits from Britain, Ireland's biggest tourism market, were up 6.8%, while trips from the rest of Europe rose by 5.8%. North America showed 5.2% growth, while trips from the rest of the world jumped by 12.3%.
For the first nine months of this year, visitor numbers are up 10% from the same period last year to just over five million, with the biggest increase of 12.3% coming from continental Europe.
Irish people made just under two million trips abroad in the third quarter of this year, down 7% from the same period last year. For the first nine months, visits abroad are down 4.2% to just over five million.
