Visitors spend in excess of €1,000 on trips to Ireland in March - CSO

The St Patrick’s Day festival in Dublin and other celebrations around the country last month contributed to a significant bounce in the numbers visiting Ireland as new figures suggest that more than half a million people came to Ireland, with almost half travelling for leisure purposes.

According to the data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO), a total of 521,800 people departed Ireland on overseas routes in March, with just under a third of those people said to be foreign visitors to the country.

A further 61 per cent of the total were Irish residents heading overseas, while just under 8 per cent of the total were people who were described as same-day visitors.

Of those who were visiting Ireland, just over 38 per cent were from Britain while 19.4 per cent were from the United States and 6.5 per cent travelling to Ireland from Germany.

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The CSO data suggest the visitors stayed for an average of six nights for a cumulative total of 3.1 million nights over the course of March, the month that is widely considered to be the beginning of the tourist season.

Visitors to the country spent an average of €1,070 on the trip, a figure that includes the cost of travelling to and from the country, the cost of staying here and the cost of keeping themselves entertained while in Ireland.

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The average cost of airfares to and from the country was put at €271 while the average cost of accommodation came in at €354, with a further €420 spent on day to day expenditure.

The total estimated expenditure of foreign visitors on their trips to Ireland was put at €558.6 million.

Marginally under 50 per cent of the visitors stayed in hotel accommodation, with the remainder staying in a mix of self-catering accommodation, bed and breakfasts, hostels and private homes.

[ Head to head: Is Ireland a tourist rip-off? Conor Pope and Georgina Campbell have their say ]

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