Inbound traveller numbers fell 57% in March as pandemic accelerated

Almost 57 per cent fewer passengers travelled to the State in March, according to new figures from the Central Statistics Office.

The CSO has introduced a new release to provide data on passenger numbers after it suspended collection of tourism surveys at air and sea ports in March because of the pandemic.

The figures, which were collected by air and sea ports, show that 635,000 passengers travelled to Ireland on overseas routes in March, a fall from the 1.46 million passengers that travelled here in the same month last year.

Departures, meanwhile, fell by 58.1 per cent, with 602,000 people leaving the country in the month.

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Of the 635,000 people who arrived in the month, 95 per cent of them arrived by air, with the remainder coming by sea. Some 43 per cent of passengers travelled from the UK, 271,900 came from Europe, while 59,000 were transatlantic passengers.

Some 67,000 passengers travelled to Ireland from Spain in the month, 17,000 more than departed for the country.

The staging country that saw the most notable decrease in traffic was Italy, with arrivals from the country down 88.6 per cent.

For the year to date more than three million people have arrived in Ireland with slightly fewer departing. This represents a fall of more than 20 per cent.

Last year 20.14 million people arrived in Ireland.