Visits overseas by Irish people increased by 8 per cent in the first four months of this year on the same period last year, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
Despite the current economic uncertainty, there were 2,367,300 trips by Irish overseas from January-April 2008, compared to 2,194,100 for same period in 2007, figures released today show.
Visits to Britain rose almost 2 per cent, those to North America were up 1.5 per cent, while those to other areas rose 4.9 per cent. Trips to Europe dropped 1.8 per cent, however.
Incoming visits to Ireland only grew slightly for the first four months of 2008, however, compared to those months last year.
Trips to Ireland increased just 0.8 per cent for the January-April period of 2008; last year there was 4.4 per cent growth for those months.
There were 2,146,100 visits made to Ireland in the four months, compared to 2,129,900 visits registered in the first four months of 2007.
Of those, trips from Britain increased by some 20,000, those from North America were up 3,300, while visits from Europe fell by some 10,000.
