The total number of trips to Ireland from overseas increased by 2.7 per cent in the three months to February, latest figures show.
The Central Statistics Office today published figures for overseas travel for the three months from last December.
Some 1,145,900 trips were made to Ireland – an increase of 30,600 on the same period last year.
Trips by British residents were up by 6.6 per cent to 577,600 while trips by residents of other European were up by 1 per cent to 372,100.
The number of visitors from North America decreased by 4.3 per cent to 128,900, and the number from other areas was down by 4.7 per cent.
Trips by Irish residents, both abroad and within Ireland, and overseas trips to Ireland in the three months to February increased by 0.5 per cent to 2,289,300.
Total trips by Irish residents in the same three-month period last year showed a drop of some 6.5 per cent on the same period in 2010/2011.
Chief executive of Tourism Ireland, Niall Gibbons, said the figures were a "positive start" to 2012.
"Particularly welcome is the growth of 6.6 per cent in visitor numbers from Great Britain, our largest and most important market, which delivers about 45 per cent of all our overseas visitors.
“We anticipate that growth in overseas visitors numbers for the first quarter of this year will be slow; however, overall sentiment and anecdotal feedback from tour operators and travel trade contacts in our key markets, as well as from people working in the tourism industry around Ireland, is cautiously optimistic – particularly for quarters two and three of 2012," Mr Gibbons said.
Tourism Ireland said overseas tourism business accounts for about 59 per cent (€3.4 billion) of all tourism revenue and that it had the capacity to deliver even more for Ireland as part of an export-led economic renewal.
About 200,000 people are employed in the tourism industry, which accounts for nearly 4 per cent of GNP.