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FOR THE FIRST time, the total annual earnings of the Irish tourism industry will exceed €7 billion.
The figure (€7.3 billion to be exact) was released today as part of the Irish Tourist Industry Confederation’s (ITIC) review of 2015 and outlook for next year.
Overseas tourists spent just over €4.1 billion in Ireland in 2015, a 16% increase – or almost €600 million more compared to the previous year.
Irish air and sea carriers earned a further €1.3 billion from tourists. Domestic tourism demand also picked up with an estimated 6% increase in spending, up to €1.6 billion, with a further €300 million earned from visitors from Northern Ireland.
The number of overseas visitors grew by 14% to top eight million people – the highest number on record.
The ITIC said there was an increase of 20% in holiday visitors, while business visitor numbers were up by 10%, and those coming to visit friends and relatives grew by 2%.
“It has been a remarkable year for Irish tourism with record visitor numbers in both volume and value terms,” ITIC chairman Paul Gallagher said.
Tourism businesses currently are estimated to employ in excess of 220,000, with over one in every five new jobs created since 2011 having come in the tourism sector.
Gallagher noted that, based on projected tourism revenue growth of 5%, at least a further 6,800 jobs can be created in the tourism industry in 2016.
Lack of hotels
The ITIC warned that capacity issues “represent a potentially serious constraint to continued growth”, particularly in terms of a shortage of hotels in Dublin and other urban centres.
Dublin has significant capacity constraints and visitor number targets will not be met unless the deficit in hotel bedroom development is addressed with some urgency.
“ITIC is of the view that approximately 5,000 bedrooms are needed by 2020 and we await Fáilte Ireland’s report on this area,” Gallagher said.
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Save 25min but less frequent and cancelled stoppes ah yea brilliant
An effort to link train arrival times to bus departure times would be a good start if these guys have any interest in more people travelling on trains.
It would be a great idea if both bus eireann and Irish rail both linked their bus and train timetables especially in the country they’d both get more customers and it would be needed in Kerry for example.
Disaster the 5:40am train that arrived into Dublin at 8:45 – now 6:30 arriving at 9:30 its a joke no explanation
Where’s that train leaving from?? – changing the train to arrive in dublin after 9am makes no sense at all!
Michael its the Tralee train I agree its ridiculous
They never kept up with the needs of modern Ireland. And the fares are too expensive.
They couldn’t be more wrong the 15:15 from Ennis to limerick is still at the platform
Limerick to Galway.
Between a rock and a hard place.
Poverty and crime to rain and grime.
25 minutes .. Great! Except for the fact that they cancelled my train and will now not get home 2 hours later than I normally do
Still takes nearly 3 hours to get to Galway. 24th slowest out of 28 countries in europe.
missed the 12.20 cork Dublin this morning as i forgot the times were changing. i wasn’t the only one stuck there for 50 mins til the next one left. Train took 10 mins longer than last weekend too…. improved efficiency my a$$!!
Part of the problem is also the high fares and old rail / station infrastructure and lack of electrification. By relying on diesel, train fares are prone to rising commodity prices. Also, the shortage of rail-cars apparently to cut costs means overcrowding on many trains – something few would be prepared to endure. Further, the lack of enough overpasses.
One less train on the Dublin-Waterford line means one less chance of running into Willie Middleton and his cronies. A good thing.
More of a chance of bumping into him with less trips as he will have less choice increasing yours of meeting him
Who’s he?
Ok how much are the tickets going up by now to justify the time saved,extra 5 euro?
Who’s Willie Middleton…Kate’s uncle?
Meanwhile over at Amiens Street (sorry, Connolly) one train less to Sligo and no change in journey times.
No doubt the oleaginous Barry Kenny (any relation?) will be giving us some flannel about this being an improvement.
They are also missing a separate timetable for kildare to Dublin.
credit where merited and a cursory look sees my journey Dublin to Ballinasloe is now just 1 hour 30 minutes at a cost of 14.99 which to me is excellent.
and Dublin-Cork now regularly two hours 30. That’s considerable improvement.
this new service is a complete joke train running late nearly every day can they get anything right
Dublin Sligo route change is pathetic. The original 5pm and 7pm made no sense for people finishing work at 5pm and now merging both into a 6pm will make the difficulty of finding a seat even worse! Maybe if they cut the journey time on this route instead and actually invested in a second line the usage might go up. Two and a half hours to travel 200km on a train is beyond belief in today’s day and age …
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