There has been a slight decrease in visitors to Ireland from abroad so far this year.
New figures from the Central Statistics Office show about 5,631,300 trips were made to Ireland this year. Last year during the same period 5,652,500 such trips were made.
Despite this there has been an increase in travel to Ireland late in the year. From August to October 2011 approximately 1,919,800 trips were made, but this figure has increased by 29,800 trips this year.
More than 116,000 more trips have been made abroad by Irish people this year than were made by visitors to the country. This is a significant change from last year, when 142,500 more trips were made to Ireland than journeys away.
The most frequent visitors to Ireland this year have been from Great Britain, the Benelux countries, France, Germany and Italy.
A spokesman for Fáilte Ireland said these figures were just as expected. "The key thing is to find markets in Great Britain, identify and them and aggressively market them," he said.
"Traditional tourism locations like Kerry and metropolitan areas like Dublin did well this year. The reason for that is that there are good festivals, good events, good conferences going on around the country."
The spokesman added The Gathering should see an increase in trips to Ireland next year.