Overseas Travel Up Again

Overseas Trips by Irish Residents increased by 11% to 548,400 in January 2008 compared to the 493,900 recorded in January 2007, according to new figures released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

In January 2008 Overseas Trips to Ireland totalled 437,000 which was slightly less than the 440,900 recorded in January 2007.

The breakdown of visitors to Ireland by Area of Residence for January 2008 shows the following:

• Trips to Ireland by residents of Great Britain fell by just under 2% to 224,000.
• Trips to Ireland by residents of Other European countries increased slightly to 147,600.
• Trips to Ireland by residents of North America remained virtually unchanged at 44,200, while trips from Other Areas fell by almost 5% to 21,200.
• Residents of Great Britain accounted for 51% of all Overseas Trips to Ireland, followed by residents of USA at 9% and residents of Poland at 6%.

The CSO also announced that they recently released their "Airport Pairings" CSO database which contains information of every direct flight in and out of the nine Irish airports on a monthly basis.

Data is currently available from January 2006 to June 2007.