New figures from the Central Statistics Office show that 548,100 foreign visitors completed a trip to Ireland in October, a fall of 5.1% compared with the figures for October 2023.
The CSO said these visitors spent a total of €534.3m their trips (excluding fares), up 3.6% compared with last year.
The typical foreign visitor spent €1,311 (€975 excluding fares) on their trip to Ireland in October.
This included €337 on fares, €45 on prepayments, €441 on accommodation and €489 on day-to-day expenses. In October last year, the comparable mean expenditure on these items was €311, €52, €412, and €429 respectively.
The largest contingent of visitors (32.6%) came from Great Britain, followed by the US (21.7%), and Germany (8.1%).
Today's CSO figures show that the most frequent reason (44.2%) for travelling to Ireland was for holiday or leisure, while the next most likely reason was to visit family or friends, with 29.9% of the visitors coming for this purpose and 16.9% of the visitors had come for business or work-related reasons.
Compared with October 2023, visitors for holiday or leisure decreased by 9.6% whilst those visiting family or friends fell by 9.7%, and those visiting for business or work rose by 1.3%.
The visitors stayed a total of 3.9 million nights in the country, down 2.1% compared to the same month last year.
The average length of stay for foreign resident overnight visitors was 7.1 nights, up from an average of 6.9 nights in October 2023.
