Pulse Survey now running Five years on, we're measuring the lasting impact of COVID-19 on our lives in our latest short Pulse Survey. CSO Pulse Surveys are anonymous and open to all. #CSOTakePart
More than 1,228,900 passengers arrived in Ireland on overseas routes in February 2023.
This compares with 787,300 arrivals in February 2022, an increase of 56.1%.
Some 1,184,200 passengers arrived by air and 44,700 by sea in February 2023.
More arrivals came via Great Britain (493,100) than via any other country in February 2023.
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 1,228,900 passengers arriving in Ireland in February 2023, 96.4% (1,184,200) arrived by air and 3.6% (44,700) arrived by sea. These percentage shares are the same as pre-pandemic February 2020 when 96.4% of passengers arrived by air and 3.6% arrived by sea also.
In February 2023, 40.2% of passenger arrivals (494,100) 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 49.1% of passenger arrivals (603,400) 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). A further 6.1% of passenger arrivals (75,300) came or returned to Ireland on transatlantic routes (embarking in the United States or Canada). Just 4.6% of passenger arrivals (56,000) 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 February 2023), the most important country gateways for passengers travelling to Ireland were Spain (134,100), France (83,000), and the United States (66,300). When we compare these passenger flows with February 2020, we see that passenger arrivals embarking from Spain were 21.8% higher than pre-pandemic levels and passenger arrivals embarking from France were 29.3% higher. However, passenger arrivals embarking from the United States decreased by 18.0% when compared with February 2020.
Learn about our data and confidentiality safeguards, and the steps we take to produce statistics that can be trusted by all.
Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (29 March 2023) released Air and Sea Travel Statistics for February 2023.
Commenting on the release, Gregg Patrick, Statistician in the Tourism and Travel Division, said: “The latest Air and Sea Travel Statistics show that 1,228,900 passengers arrived in Ireland on overseas routes in February 2023. These passengers, comprising foreign visitors arriving in Ireland and Irish overseas travellers returning home, represented a very substantial increase on February 2022, when 787,300 passengers arrived on overseas routes. The increase is even more substantial when compared with February 2021 when just 54,800 passengers arrived on these routes. Passenger arrivals are also higher than pre-pandemic February 2020, when 1,215,100 passengers arrived on overseas routes, representing an increase of 1.1%.
The recovery is seen in both modes of travel (air and sea), although the recovery in air travel is most pronounced, increasing by 56.9% in February 2023 compared with February 2022. The recovery is also spread across all major routes, with transatlantic traffic up most (97.5%) in relative terms, increasing from 38,100 in February 2022 to 75,300 in February 2023. Among the continental routes, Spanish routes remain the busiest, with 134,100 passengers arriving on these routes in February 2023, a 42.5% increase compared with February 2022.
However, in overall terms, Great Britain remained the most important departure country for overseas travel to Ireland, with 493,100 passengers arriving on air and sea routes from Great Britain in February 2023, compared with just 318,500 in February 2022."