People travelling abroad last year increased at a greater rate than in 1998 when compared with the numbers of tourists coming to visit, according to the Central Statistics Office's latest figures. There were more than six million visitors to Ireland in the year 1999, an increase of 6.2 per cent on the previous year. The number of visits abroad by Irish residents in 1999 was up by 7.4 per cent.
Irish residents travelling abroad on continental routes increased by 24.9 per cent, while travel on transatlantic routes increased by 27.5 per cent. On average, the Irish spend 9.4 nights abroad compared to 7.7 nights for our foreign guests.
In case you thought you imagined that there were more North Americans tourists last year, their numbers increased by 10.3 per cent over 1998's figures. Visitors from continental routes rose by 9.3 per cent. The overwhelming majority - 86.6 per cent - of same day visitors in 1999 were from Britain.
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