Tourist visits to NI back to pre-pandemic levels, figures suggest

The new figures add to the evidence that an increase in visitors from the Republic of Ireland, which began during the pandemic, has been sustained.

During the pandemic people were prevented from flying to overseas destinations leading to more people from the Republic holidaying north of the border for the first time.

The figures suggest there were 756,000 overnight trips from the Republic in 2019 which had jumped by 70% to 1.3m in 2023.

John McGrillen, the chief executive of Tourism NI, said there would have to be continued investment to build on that progress.

“What we managed to do was have a pretty heavyweight marketing campaign which got across some core messages: we’re easy to reach, we’re value for money, there’s lots to do.

“We can’t be complacent. We need to keep doing what we’re doing to make sure that market continues to return.”

Domestic tourism (trips made by NI residents) was the largest segment of the market in 2023, accounting for 40% of overnight trips.

Great Britain was the next largest (27%), followed by the Republic of Ireland (24%) and the rest of the world (9%).

The 9% of visitors from the rest of the world accounted for 17% of spending emphasising the importance of those visitors for growth.

A draft tourism strategy published last year says that a priority is to convince visitors to stay longer and spend more rather than growing the absolute number of visitors.

It also acknowledged that some key attractions such as the Causeway Coastal Route are “reaching capacity in peak season and creating potential frustrated demand”.

It said investments planned through the city and growth deals offers “capacity building opportunities” in other locations that could encourage a wider geographical dispersion of visitors.