Ireland has experienced a tourism crisis as visitors to the island are down 3,500 a day.
The latest figures show the tourism industry in Ireland has been hard hit by the worldwide recession. Ireland is losing a staggering 100,000 visitors each month so far this year. The Central Statistics Office study showed 354,400 fewer tourists visited Ireland between January and March, a drop of 23 per cent on the previous year to 1.084 million. St Patrick’s Day celebrations in March failed to attract the tourists as numbers arriving in Ireland declined by 18 per cent during the month to 434,200, down 3,500 per day. However, the figures show the number of tourists from North America fell by just 3 per cent for the first three months, while visitors from other long-haul destinations increased by 11 per cent. Irish people are also making fewer trips abroad but the fall is much less dramatic. People made 543,100 trips abroad in March, down only 4 per cent since last year and for the first three months of the year, overseas trips fell by 7 per cent.