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FIGURES RELEASED TODAY by the Central Statistics Office have shown that more tourists visited Ireland in 2016 than ever before.
A total of 9,584,400 people visited our shores last year, representing a 10.9% increase on 2015.
A spokesperson for Tourism Ireland told TheJournal.ie that a myriad of factors, which include stronger global economy, air access to Ireland and star attractions such as the filming locations of Star Wars and Game of Thrones, helped Irish tourism pull in the visitors last year.
Tourism authorities here are planning to build on these figures in 2017 by promoting regions such as the Wild Atlantic Way and Ireland’s Ancient East, as well as capitalising on our connections to Star Wars and Game of Thrones.
Tourism Ireland added that the risks to tourism of Brexit can be mitigated through aggressive marketing and proactive policy interventions.
In terms of breakdown, visits from different regions of the world rose across the board last year.
North American visitors increased by 19.4% to just under 2 million. Visitors from mainland Europe grew 8.5% to 3.3 million people.
UK visitors totalled 3.9 million, representing a rise of 10.6%, while visitors to Ireland from the rest of the world rose 2.2% to over half a million people.
Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Shane Ross welcomed the figures and praised the hard work of tourism agencies.
He added that he is “confident of another good year for tourism in 2017″.
Warning notes were sounded, however, by Fáilte Ireland on the challenges that lie ahead for Irish tourism.
Its director of business development, Paul Keeley, said: “While 2016 delivered an impressive performance, we need to remember that, as a small open tourism economy, we are at the mercy of external events.
The unexpected Brexit development means that the British market is set to be challenging in the near future, particularly given the weakening of Sterling.
According to 2016 figures, British visitors represented well over a third of all overseas visitors to Ireland.
Keeley added that Ireland should now “address the factors within our control” to help mitigate the effects of Brexit.
Tourism Ireland CEO Niall Gibbons, echoed these warnings and said that they would highlight iconic experiences across Ireland and that the group aims to grow overseas tourism revenue by 4.5% to €5.7 billion this year.
He said: “Tourism Ireland believes that the adverse impact of Brexit can be mitigated through a combination of aggressive overseas marketing and the continuation of existing successful wider policy initiatives.”
He added that the depreciation of the pound against the euro means that value for money in coming to Ireland must be emphasised to British tourists, in particular.
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On the one hand it wouldn’t surprise me what with Chechnya’s deep rooted history in Islam. On the other it wouldn’t surprise me if this was Turkey’s attempt at justifying the increased level of tension between Russia and Turkey.
This will be one to watch in any event.
Wow , there are radicals in Russia .. lol , why is that news ? There are radicals spread all across the globe , is this a pathetic excuse to start a conflict with Russia ?
Who said anything about justification for a conflict? The Turkish economy had received a significant amount of income from Russian tourism. Since Turkish forces shot down that Russian jet the Russian government have moved to ban holidaymakers from travelling to Turkey. They claim that it is unsafe due to Daesh activities. It would be a fantastic propaganda coup for Turkey if they could catch Russian citizens in the act of committing terrorist attacks there as it would not only galvanise support on the home front towards harsh lines with Russia but it would also embarrass Putin at the same time.
Therefore it’ll be interesting to see whether Chechen extremists were actually involved in this or if the Turks are colouring the facts in for their own propaganda purposes.
Jason, I’d say you’d be spouting all sorts of incredulous nonsense if someone were to speculate in that fashion about your beloved USA.
“your beloved USA.”
Why is it that people like yourself assume that rational evidence-based thought is automatically blind love for America? I’m just as critical of America and her allies as I am of Russia and her allies and analyse their actions accordingly. I merely keep a distance, criticise those who come to decisions based on emotion rather than factual evidence and try to build as factual a viewpoint as possible.
I was merely pointing out that it’ll be interesting to see how this pans out. The Turkish government as well as their allies will no doubt claim that Russian civilians were definitely involved and it may well be the case. Russia will no doubt claim that it is a fabricated story for propaganda purposes which may well be the case.
No mention of Chechans above.It says Russian nationals.
Alan, Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation (albeit not willingly) and the inhabitants of Chechnya are officially Russian nationals. It’s also the area of the Russian Federation which produces a significant majority of their Islamic extremists.
It’s a safe bet at this point statistically speaking to assume that they’ll be Chechens although I’ll stand corrected if this proves not to be the case.
I was just about to say the same thing Jason.
I know where Chechnya is Jason. Assuming without any evidence to explain your theory is just blind guessing chief. No safe bet there, although it could just as easily be right as wrong – you have no clue at this stage however.
It’s not exactly blind guessing when the statistics back up the basis from which the claim was made. The vast majority of Islamic extremists coming from Russia are from Chechnya, therefore there’s a statistically higher chance that they are Chechen than not.
Guessing based on statistics you seem to have then Jason??
More the use of common sense Alan.
I think you misunderstand common sense Al
Question: Why were these suspects not arrested before?
Turkish Govt used to harbour Chechen militants and MIT (Turkish Intelligence – now there is an oxymoron) armed them just as it armed Daesh
Alan
Its called an surmised option, what,s your problem with Jason surmising it might be checnayans, it s a reasonable assumption, do all comments now have to have hard data before one can surmise on a topic. I for one think Jason has enough creditability to express his option on this forum, without your approval
Eddie,
I doubt Jason is looking for my approval. As you say yourself “surmising it might be”. Not exactly hard data as you put it. There’s no mention of Chechans in the story at this point. What’s your problem with me questioning someone who makes an assumption without any evidence?
Also, Jason doesn’t need to have credibility to express an opinion – it’s a comment section. If you express an opinion in public there’s no need to get huffy if someone asks questions on said opinion. I’m pretty sure Jason can speak for himself, why don’t you form “an surmised option” of your own.
Chechnya is not russia. They are dangerous people always carry a knife. Remember the school in russia they killed many? Remember the theatre in moscow they killed more. My wife grew up in that part of the world and she says they are serious head cases. I believe her.
@gregory………….That’s for sure gregory. Used to be a bunch hang out in and around the Five Star internet on Talbot St. a few yrs back during the boom selling drugs I believe. Street gang types.Scary!
Glad they are gone.
Funny how they were able to pick up 60 suspected IS members so fast
Yep. How did they get the info on 60 people so quickly. Or if they already knew about them then why didn’t they nab them earlier.
Probably because there was insufficient evidence to secure a prosecution. We know of confirmed and suspected Daesh members across Europe and North America who would be back on the streets in a matter of weeks or months if arrested now.
It’s better to wait until you know they’ll have enough incriminating evidence to put them away for years at least.
As Jason said above evidence is needed on these people. It’s also possible that they were watching them to find out what if any plans they had to form an attack. Arresting them too early could lead to a cell going to ground and security services losing what intel they had on them.
Turkey buys isis oil. Kurds fight isis in kurdistan and want self governance. Turkey invades iraq last month and bombs kurds. Turkey does not want a kurdistan. Kurds fought saddam hussein. Usa fought saddam hussein on basis he was murdering kurds with gas. Usa supports turkey who fight the kurds. Go figure. As dutch say…when 2 dogs fight for bone the 3rd one takes it (=isis)
Hmmm something smells fishy…
Boycott Turkey!
Kick Turkey out of NATO!
Stop Merkel from trying to fast track Turkey into EEC!
Don’t believe anything that Erdogan and his Govt. says…………
Exile Merkel to Turkey!
Reminder that this has NOTHING to do with Islam, just a few bad eggs
Play it safe – avoid all Muslim countries – it’s somewhat though not entirely safer
Very fishy…..something doesn’t seem right….
The fishy thing is that Chechnya is a fully integral part of Russia.
No mention of Chechnya.
Chechnya and Dagestan are pretty much the centre of Islamic extremism in Russia. If you’re Russian and a Muslim extremist then it’s almost guaranteed that you come from one of these areas.
I see you’ve added Dagestan to widen your suspicions. Still guessing I see.
Are you bonkers Alan? Jason is just laying out a possible scenario, why are you being so silly?
Alan, why exactly are you obsessed with the idea that I’m guessing? The vast majority of Islamic extremists in Russia come from Chechnya. The next largest group after that, which still constitutes a very small portion, come from the neighbouring region of Dagestan. The remainder would be in the single digit percentiles.
Therefore there’s very solid statistical foundation for the likelihood of the arrested Russians originating from Chechnya.
You are guessing Jason. Statistically it’s possible you are correct, statistically it’s possible you’re incorrect. I’m just trying to figure if you’ve any other reason for saying these militants are chechans. No need to get so defensive chief
The words you’re looking for are statistical probability. It’s one of the less complicated bits of statistics.
FFS Alan – statistically it’s more likely that Jason is right than that Jason is wrong. Can we just leave it at that?
@Jason. Its presumption Jason but based on historical probability, it’s an educated guess. I’ll put my money on your assumption proving to be accurate though.
Jason is right. Putin himself said there are thousands of ru isis militants why he went to support syria and get them
Erdoğan is reaping what he sowed in his support for Daesh’s wahabbist policies.
Erdoğan isn’t reaping what he sowed. If he was, he would be dead, not innocent civilians
You’d want to be mentally insane to even consider going there or Morocco or Tunisia or Egypt for a holiday now.
This is coming to a town near you soon. Thanks to the out of control liberals.
This is the No1 Election issue.
Indeed, sligo mullingar tullamore cork dublin limerick waterford…kildare naas
Is this not some sort of fake attempt by Erdoğan to show the world that Turkey and ISIS are not in cahoots?
As this happened on Turkish soil, he’ll have to be seen to do something.
The Turks are saying they have detained some Russians in connection with yesterdays murder of tourists. RIP to all those that died. But I will never believe what Turkey has to say because they are in cahoots with ISIS, America and NATO. Killing or allowing the killings of innocent people for their own agenda is what countries like I mentioned above do.
Niall, I would include Russia in that mix
Turkey would never be on my list of places to see.
Isn’t karma a bitch? The Erdogan government stirring trouble everywhere by supporting Sunni extremists.
Registered as a Syrian refugee apparently. Brother blew himself up in Syria last year but not on any terror watchlist.
21% of Turks believe IS represents Islam. 1 in 5. Not just that it ‘has something to do with Islam’ but that it represents Islam. I’d love to hear the politically correct attempt to convince those 16 million or so, mostly Muslims, how wrong they are about that.
Presumably it’s caused by the infamously unreliable Islamic education system which manages to leave 1 in 5 of its students believing the exact opposite of what we’re told they’re supposed to believe. The scale of this ‘misunderstanding’ is surely historically unprecedented. /sarc.
“In response to questions, 9.3 per cent of respondents said that Islamic State was not a terrorist organisation, with 5.4 per cent supporting its actions.
Twenty-one per cent said it represents Islam and 8.9 per cent believe the group is a country or state, according to the research”
While I think it was ISIS, I would add that the response from the Turkish regime suggests they are using these attacks as an excuse to clamp down on dissent. For example after the first ISIS attack in Turkey which was on a Kurdish peace rally, the HDP (Kurdish party) accused the “Deep State” of involvement. In Turkey “insulting the president” is a crime, so this was treated as an insult to the president. We can’t rule out a Reichstag Fire event to clamp down on the Opposition. Indeed we can’t rule out IS and the AKP regime are in cahoots as part of a joint enterprise to Islamise Turkey, using terror as an excuse for clamping down on dissent to get there. Erdogan’s speech yesterday spent 20 seconds criticising terrorism, and 20 minutes criticising ‘intellectuals’. Authoritiarian regimes always go after intellectuals because they are free thinkers – something anathema in a totalitarian state.
Turkey’s PM Amhet Davodoglu saId to-day ISIS/Daesh is an intermediary/proxy terror group and a 3rd power may be behind Istambul blast.
Does he mean that Turkey is behind the bombing?
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—The assailant’s link to Daesh has been determined but Daesh is an intermediary organization,” said Davutoğlu, using an acronym for ISIL, and hinting at another power being behind attack in central Istanbul.—”
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-http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/detainees-in-sultanahmet-blast-increases-to-five-turkish-pm-.aspx?pageID=238&nID=93836&NewsCatID=338
Asymmetric violence will not be effectively addressed by conventional bombings of ISIL/ Daesh positions on Syria.
Alone !
Schtick that on the end there Fiona.
have your say