30/8/2013: Some Good Stats on Travel to Ireland: July 2013

Some decent numbers on travel to Ireland: http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/tourismtravel/2013/overseastravelmayjuly2013.pdf

Summary table:

Particularly encouraging are the following data points:

1. May-July figures are up 5.24% on same period 2011, and this is in excess of January-July increase of 4.60%. The significance here is that in May-July we had fewer EU Presidency activities in Ireland, thus trips to Ireland during this period are more likely reflective of tourism, rather than of bureaucravel from Brussels.
2. North American visits are up solidly +16.5% for May-July 2013 on same period 2011 and +13.4% for January-July 2013 on same period in 2011.
3. Trips to Ireland from areas other then EU, Other Europe, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Other Oceania are up in May-July on 2011 and 2012 levels, though they are still slightly down for H1 2013 compared to H1 2013.