The continuing slump in the tourism sector shows no sign easing with data for June showing further sharp declines in visitor numbers.
The latest travel figures, published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) today, showed overseas visits to Ireland fell by 113,300 (15.1 per cent) in June compared with the same month last year.
There were 636,600 visits from abroad in June compared with 749,900 visits in June 2008.
Trips to Ireland from Britain and mainland Europe, the State's two main visitor markets, saw sharp declines.
Visitor numbers from Britain fell nearly 20 per cent (64,300) to 260,700 in June compared with the same month last year. Trips from Britain have now fallen by 291,700 in the first six months of the year.
Trips made from other countries in Europe fell 12 per cent (29,900) to 219,600. Trips from Europe have now fallen by 62,200 in the year to June.
The figures show the total number of overseas visits to Ireland has now dropped 10.7 per cent to 3,304,100 in the first six months of the year.
Trips abroad by Irish residents in June were 709,900, down nearly 7.6 per cent on the same period last year.
The figures, which did not give a breakdown of the destinations travelled to by Irish residents, showed overseas trips during the first six months of 2009 were down 9.8 per cent to 3,439,300.
Alex Connolly of Fáilte Ireland said many businesses in the sector had “already hit the bottom line” and the problem was compounded by the lack of credit available from the banks.
But he said the drop in outbound travel meant more people were holidaying at home this year which may help Irish businesses.
Tourism Ireland said the industry continued to be “hit hard” by the worldwide recession and by extreme volatility across all major markets.
“These CSO figures reflect the impact on Ireland and the tough year that tourism businesses across the island are experiencing,” it said.
However, it said recent data from the World Tourism Organisation suggested that while Ireland was suffering a decline in its tourism overall, it was maintaining and, in some cases, growing its share of available tourism business compared to some competitor destinations such as Great Britain, France and Germany.
Fine Gael’s tourism spokeswoman Olivia Mitchell said the relative weakness of sterling was certainly a contributing factor to the poor figures for June but she said the introduction of the departure tax in April was now “clearly influencing travel decisions for British visitors.”
Ms Mitchell called for the €10 tax to be abolished, saying “it is madness to tax what has always been our best market and experience shows that if we lose these visitors now there is a good chance they will never return.”
Ryanair also warned that unless the tax was scrapped, then the fall in visitor numbers would worsen next winter, as more flights, routes and services are cut from Dublin, Cork and Shannon Airports.
Labour senator from west Cork Michael McCarthy described the figures as “nothing short of calamitous” for areas that relied on the tourist trade.
He called for the establishment of a “policy formulation group” to review regional tourism boundaries within Fáilte Ireland and develop a programme of renewal for regional marketing and regional product development.
