Following the launch of recent tourism initiatives, including Northern Ireland?s Year of Food and Drink, celebrating the unique food heritage and quality produce; along with the rise in film tourism, Ireland reports that it has continued to experience growth from UK visitors.
Recent figures show a 13.2% increase of tourists, with approximately more than three million visitors, resulting in more than 351,000 extra visitors from Great Britain compared to January to September last year.
Overseas visitors also show no sign of faltering; figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) confirmed that visitors from overseas grew by a notable 12% in the period of January to September 2016, with more than 7.5 million arrivals - an increase of 800,000 visitors compared to the same nine-month period in 2015.
This year looks set to finish strongly with visitors continuing to enjoy the Wild Atlantic Way, the world?s longest defined coastal route that snakes along Ireland?s West coast. The Giant?s Causeway remains a favourite stopping-off point, along Northern Ireland?s Causeway Coastal Route with both continuing to attract visitors.
Vanessa Markey, head of Great Britain at Tourism Ireland, said: ?Following a hugely successful 2016 for the island of Ireland, we?re looking ahead to next year with the aim of attracting even more visitors. Our strong performance reflects the sentiment we are hearing from our partners overseas; North America for January to September is up 15.4% from the same nine-month period in 2015; and mainland Europe has also performed brilliantly (+10.6%). Mainland Europe is also up 10.6%, with an additional 249,500 extra arrivals.
?Our ?3.5million promotional campaign will continue to target Great Britain between now and the end of 2016, which should help maintain the strong growth we have seen in recent years.?
For 2017 the tourist board will continue to leverage the success of cult TV show Game of Thrones and the iconic Star Wars film, with Lucasfilm returning to Skellig Michael and Wild Atlantic Way in 2017 to film episode eight.
For more information visit ireland.com
