Passenger arrivals in State during December top 164,000

A total of 164,400 passengers arrived in the Republic by air and sea during the month of December.

This represents an increase of more than 58 per cent on the number of travellers who arrived in the State throughout November 2020, according to the latest Central Statistics Office (CSO) data.

The CSO’s Air and Sea Travel Statistics, published on Friday, show the number of travellers into the State during the December Christmas period were 88 per cent lower than the previous year. Moreover, December departures were down 87 per cent on 2019.

In November 103,900 people arrived by air and sea, down from October when 160,900 passengers entered; and September, when 254,400 people came into the State.

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The total number of people entering between January and December 2020 dropped by nearly 78 per cent to 4.46 million, down from the 20.1 million visitors in 2019. There were 4.45 million departures from the Republic during 2020, down from 20.2 million the previous year.

Of the 164,400 who arrived in December, nearly 40 per cent came by cross-channel routes from the UK, 48 per cent came from continental routes, 7 per cent by transatlantic routes and 8,500 by other overseas routes.

There were 65,100 travellers from Britain during December, a drop of nearly 90 per cent on the 621,200 people who crossed the Irish sea for a visit during December 2019.

Some 14,700 travellers from the Netherlands arrived in December 2020 along with 13,100 people from Spain, 11,200 from Poland and 8,700 from France. There were also 5,600 travellers from Germany, 5,400 from Portugal and 2,200 from Belgium. Another 13,500 people were classified by the CSO as travelling here from "other EU27" countries with a total of 79,100 people arriving on continental routes in December.

US visitor numbers

Some 4,600 people arrived from the United Arab Emirates and there were also 10,000 visitors from the United States in December, down 92 per cent from 125,700 the previous Christmas. Arrivals from the United States peaked for 2020 in January when 92,500 people visited the Republic. This dropped to 80,900 in February before plummeting to 1,100 in April. US visitor numbers increased to 10,100 in August before dropping again through the autumn.

Similarly, the number of visitors from Britain dropped from a peak of 532,600 in February 2020 to 9,300 in April. Numbers from Britain rose to 112,600 in August before steadily falling through the autumn months.

On sea and air departures from the Republic in December 2020, 54,800 people returned to Britain, 19,200 returned to Spain, 17,200 returned to Poland, 15,300 returned to the Netherlands and 6,300 returned to the United States.