More than 1,470,600 passengers arrived in Ireland on overseas routes in March 2023.
This compares with 1,100,700 arrivals in March 2022, an increase of 33.6%.
Some 1,414,000 passengers arrived by air and 56,600 by sea in March 2023.
More arrivals came via Great Britain (563,000) than via any other country in March 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 now complete and survey operations have been resumed at all air and sea ports. A new statistical series on inbound tourism is currently being developed, with publication planned for no later than July 2023. In the interim period, the CSO will continue publishing these Air and Sea Travel Statistics to provide high level visibility on overseas passenger flows.
Of the 1,470,600 passengers arriving in Ireland in March 2023, 96.1% (1,414,000) arrived by air and 3.9% (56,600) arrived by sea. These percentage shares are similar to pre-pandemic March 2019 when 95.5% of passengers arrived by air and 4.5% arrived by sea.
In March 2023, 38.4% of passenger arrivals (564,500) 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 47.4% of passenger arrivals (697,700) 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 9.9% of passenger arrivals (145,500) came or returned to Ireland on transatlantic routes (embarking in the United States or Canada). Just 4.3% of passenger arrivals (62,900) 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 March 2023), the most important country gateways for passengers travelling to Ireland were Spain (159,900), the United States (133,200), and France (86,300). When we compare these passenger flows with March 2019, we see that passenger arrivals embarking from Spain were 16.6% higher than pre-pandemic levels and passenger arrivals embarking from the United States were 0.2% higher. However, passenger arrivals embarking from France decreased by 1.7% when compared with March 2019.
Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (28 April 2023) released Air and Sea Travel Statistics for March 2023.
Commenting on the release, Gregg Patrick, Statistician in the Tourism and Travel Division, said: “The latest Air and Sea Travel Statistics show that 1,470,600 passengers arrived in Ireland on overseas routes in March 2023. These passengers, comprising foreign visitors arriving in Ireland and Irish overseas travellers returning home, represented a substantial increase on March 2022, when 1,100,700 passengers arrived on overseas routes. This growth is even more substantial when compared with March 2021 when just 61,400 passengers arrived on these routes. Passenger arrivals are slightly higher than pre-pandemic March 2019, when 1,465,900 passengers arrived on overseas routes, representing an increase of 0.3%.
The recovery is seen in both modes of travel (air and sea), although the recovery in air travel is most pronounced, which was up by 33.8% in March 2023 compared with March 2022. The recovery is also spread across all major routes, with transatlantic traffic up most (68.0%) in relative terms, increasing from 86,600 in March 2022 to 145,500 in March 2023. Among the continental routes, Spanish routes remain the busiest, with 159,900 passengers arriving on these routes in March 2023, a 31.5% increase compared with March 2022.
However, in overall terms, Great Britain remained the most important departure country for overseas travel to Ireland, with 563,000 passengers arriving on air and sea routes from Great Britain in March 2023, compared with just 426,900 in March 2022."