The CSO provided positive news for the Irish Tourism Industry this week with the release of the stats from March – May 2013 showing an increase of 8.1% on the same period for 2012.

The North American markets continues to perform strongly with an increase of 282,300 trips representing a 12.6% growth.

Mainland Europe was up 9.6% and Great Britain increased by 5.6% which is an encouraging signal from our largest source market particularly in light of its poorer performance in the past number of years.

Gerry Nicholls, President of ITOA remarked ‘these were very encouraging figures from our overseas markets that 2013 will be a good year for tourism.  ITOA members have had strong recover from the US and mainland European markets over the past two years and we are optimistic that this pattern of growth will continue through 2013.  There is no doubt that The Gathering 2013 has played an significant part in the recovery being experienced and additional trans-Atlantic air capacity this year has been a huge part of the growth from the USA’.