Key Findings
- Expenditure by inbound tourism to Ireland was €7.3 billion in 2019, with overnight visitors accounting for 96% of this total.
- Domestic tourism expenditure by Irish residents was €2.7 billion, with overnight visitors spending 79% of this amount.
- In 2019, outbound expenditure on tourism by Irish residents amounted to €8.3 billion, with same-day trips accounting for less than 1% of this total.
- The number of full-time equivalent employees working in tourism was estimated to be 284,800 in 2019 and these employees worked in almost 46,000 tourism-related enterprises.
- Tourism Direct Gross Value Added (TDGVA) was estimated to be approximately €13.5 billion in 2019 which equalled a total Gross Value Added (GVA) share of 4.4% in the Irish economy.
Statistician’s Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (21 July 2023) released Irish Tourism Sector 2019 (Tourism Satellite Account).
A Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) compiles data from many different sources and allows for comparisons between the tourist industries in different countries. This is the first time the CSO has published TSA analysis for Ireland.
Commenting on the release, Brendan Curtin, Statistician in the Tourism and Travel Division, said: “The figures in this new release published as part of the CSO Frontier Series, provide an overview of tourist activity and the importance of tourism to the Irish economy in 2019. This release uses an internationally recognised framework known as a Tourism Satellite Account (TSA). Using this methodology means data on tourism in Ireland can be compared with other EU countries.
For the EU-27 inbound tourism expenditure was worth €437 billion in 2019. Five countries (Spain, France, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands) accounted for two-thirds (65%) of this expenditure, while Ireland had a 2% share.
For Ireland overnight trips accounted for almost all expenditure on inbound and outbound tourism trips in 2019 (96% and 99% respectively). Across the EU same day trips accounted for 13% of expenditure on inbound tourism trips and 6% of outbound tourism trips.
The per capita estimate of internal tourism consumption in Ireland was approximately €2,000 per inhabitant in 2019. This compares with an average value of €2,800 per inhabitant across the EU for internal tourism.”
Read more on the CSO website.
