Minister hails importance of domestic tourism
Thousands of Irish people took holidays across Ireland last year ploughing over a billion euro into the economy, it was revealed today.
Tourism Minister John O’Donoghue said the domestic market had always been a stable lifeline for the industry.
“When you consider that nearly 40% of the Irish population took a holiday at home in 2004, there is good reason for confidence in relation to the competitiveness of Ireland’s tourism product,” he said.
Figures from the Central Statistics Office have estimated that Irish people spent over one billion euro while on holiday across the country, which was an increase of 6.8% on the previous year.
Mr O’Donoghue said that the domestic spending combined with overseas tourism revenue of over €4bn last year meant that the tourism industry was now valued at over €5.1bn a year.
Over 7 million domestic trips were taken with at least one overnight stay during 2004, up from 6.6 million the previous year.
There were over 3.1 million domestic holiday trips in 2004 – which was a rise on the 2.9 million taken in 2003.
New figures from the CSO showed there were 608,000 domestic holiday trips taken during the last three months of 2004, an increase of 12% on the same period in 2003. However, the number of domestic business trips dropped by 15% to 149,000.
Mr O’Donoghue said he was optimistic for the further growth of the domestic tourism market.
He claimed that €125m was being spent on the promotion of the tourism industry this year, with a €3m home marketing campaign from Failte Ireland.
