This article appears in the current issue of 'Hotel and Restaurant Times'

There are two reasons for two cheers for tourism in this final month of 2011 . The number of  overseas visitors to Ireland has increased steadily over the first  ten months of the year and the Central Statistics Ofice, prompted by Minister Leo Varadkar, has restored its monthly statistical service in relation to trips into and out of  Ireland.

Some 3,696,000 overseas visitors came to Ireland in the first seven months of this year, an increase of 11.8% on the same period of last year. Visitors from mainland Europe were up by almost 14% over the period while the American market showed a strong 13% growth. The biggest, and most pleasant surprise however was that visitors from Great Britain grew by 9% for the period, a recovery which had not been predicted in earlier returns, nor indeed from anecdotal reports in the marketplace.

While not actually taking these statistics with the proverbial ‘dose of salt’, it is important to put them into two contexts. The first is the dreadful experience of the early Summer of 2010 when the infamous Icelandic ash cloud severely disrupted travel not only into to this country but throughout much of Europe. The disruption sent arrivals in May and June into freefall and therefore it was only to be expected that a recovery would take place this year. The second context is the pattern of Irish tourism since 2007 when incoming visitor numbers reached their peak. Since then the industry has been on a downward spiral and therefore growth figures for this year are on a base which is around a third lower than it was five years ago. Overseas visitor numbers for all of 2007 totalled 7.7million compared to 5.8million for last year and the first half figures show a similar pattern. During the first six months of 2008, for instance, we welcomed 4.53m overseas tourists. In 2009 the number had fallen to 4.06m and to a low of 3.3m. last year. This year’s total of 3.69m. therefore should be seen in this context.