More than 1,309,500 passengers arrived in Ireland on overseas routes in December 2022.
This compares with 692,900 arrivals in December 2021, an increase of 89%.
Some 1,237,000 passengers arrived by air and 72,500 by sea in December 2022.
More arrivals came via Great Britain (550,600) than via any other country in December 2022.
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The collection of Tourism Statistics at air and sea ports was suspended in March 2020, to protect CSO enumerators and the travelling public from COVID-19. As a result, the details of travel to Ireland classified by country of residence, which were previously presented in the monthly Overseas Travel release, are not currently available. To help fill the data gap, the CSO is publishing this Air and Sea Travel Statistics release which reports on the numbers of overseas travellers arriving and departing Ireland classified by travel route. The information is compiled primarily from statistics provided by the DAA (Cork and Dublin airports), together with data from other airports and sea ferry operators. In March 2022 the CSO resumed survey operations at Dublin Airport on a test basis, using a new data capture methodology. This testing is currently being extended to the other air and sea ports. Until these trials are complete and survey operations are fully scaled, the CSO will continue publishing these Air and Sea Travel Statistics to provide high level visibility on overseas passenger flows. |
Of the 1,309,500 passengers arriving in Ireland in December 2022, 94.5% (1,237,000) arrived by air and 5.5% (72,500) arrived by sea. This percentage share of air and sea travel is comparable with pre-pandemic December 2019 (when 94% of passengers arrived by air and 6% arrived by sea).
In December 2022, 42.1% of passenger arrivals (551,800) came or returned to Ireland on cross-channel routes (i.e. their point of embarkation was an airport or seaport in Great Britain, the Isle of Man, or the Channel Islands). Some 44.3% of passenger arrivals (580,000) came or returned to Ireland on continental routes (embarking in a European airport or seaport other than in Great Britain, the Isle of Man, or the Channel Islands). Just under one-tenth (9.9%) of passenger arrivals (130,000) came or returned to Ireland on transatlantic routes (embarking in the United States or Canada). Approximately four in every one hundred (3.7%) of passenger arrivals (47,800) came or returned to Ireland on other routes (embarking in Africa or Asia).
Apart from Great Britain (which accounted for almost all cross-channel activity in December 2022), the most important country gateways for passengers travelling to Ireland were the United States (119,900), Spain (117,800), Germany (73,000) and France (66,900). When we compare these passenger flows with December 2019, we see that passenger arrivals embarking from Spain were 18.6% higher than pre-pandemic levels and passenger arrivals embarking from France were 5.0% higher. However, passenger arrivals embarking from Germany and the United States decreased by 16.0% and 4.6% respectively compared with December 2019.
Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (30 January 2023) released Air and Sea Travel Statistics for December 2022.
Commenting on the release, Gregg Patrick, Statistician in the Tourism and Travel Division, said: “The latest Air and Sea Travel Statistics show that 1,309,500 passengers arrived in Ireland on overseas routes in December 2022. These passengers, comprising foreign visitors arriving in Ireland and Irish overseas travellers returning home, represent a very substantial increase on December 2021, when 692,900 passengers arrived on overseas routes. The increase is even more substantial when compared with December 2020 when just 164,400 passengers arrived on these routes. However, passenger arrivals remain lower (4.6%) than pre-pandemic December 2019, when 1,372,600 passengers arrived on overseas routes.
The recovery is seen in both modes of travel (air and sea), although the recovery in air travel is most pronounced, increasing by 92.8% in December 2022 compared with December 2021. The recovery is also spread across all major routes, with transatlantic traffic up most. In relative terms, there were more than two passengers arriving on transatlantic routes in December 2022 for every one passenger in December 2021. Among the continental routes, Spanish routes remain the busiest, with 117,800 passengers arriving on these routes,up 69.7% compared with December 2021.
However, in overall terms, Great Britain remained the most important departure country for overseas travel to Ireland, with 550,600 passengers arriving on air and sea routes from Great Britain, compared with just 285,400 in December 2021.
In the year 2022, 17,257,000 passengers arrived in Ireland from overseas. This represents a very substantial increase compared with 2021 when only 4,955,900 passengers arrived in Ireland. However, passenger arrivals in 2022 remain significantly lower (-14.3%) than pre-pandemic 2019, when 20,143,700 passengers arrived on overseas routes."