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THE TOTAL NUMBER of oversesas trips to Ireland rose in the period November 2011 to January 2012 by 1.8 per cent compared with last year.
Overseas residents made 1,195,400 trips to Ireland over that period, up 22,800 trips on the same period a year ago.
The latest CSO visitor figures come after the organisation’s data showed a dip in visitors to Ireland towards the end of last year. The overall number of trips made to Ireland in 2011 rose 4.2 per cent to 6.5 million visits last year.
Visits by residents of Great Britain rose 4.7 per cent to 580,00 trips,
Meanwhile visitors from North America made 5.4 per cent fewer trips here (141,900 trips) and visits from residents of ‘other areas’ fell by 9.4 per cent to 68,400.
Irish residents made 1.6 per cent fewer trips overseas between November and January (down from 1,187,600 last year to 1,169,100).
Commenting on the CSO data, Minister for Tourism Leo Varadkar said they marked a good start to 2012 for Ireland’s tourism sector. He said that Ireland should focus on building on tourism from Great Britain, “our largest market for inbound tourism”.
“I believe the continued growth from Britain shows that the British tourist recognises that Ireland is accessible, different and offers great value once again.”
“The upcoming St Patrick’s week events right across our key markets,” he added, “along with the international launch of The Gathering Ireland 2013, the biggest ever tourism initiative in Ireland, will allow us to build on this good start to 2012. Tourism Ireland will be ‘greening’ landmarks throughout the world, reinforcing the message that there has never been a better time to come and experience what Ireland has to offer.”
Tourism Ireland also welcomed today’s figures, with CEO Niall Gibbons saying the organisation is expecting overseas visitor number to grow throughout the first quarter of 2012. However, he said that a number of factors are expected to continue impacting on tourism levels during 2012:
Overall sentiment and anecdotal feedback from tour operators and travel trade contacts in our key markets, as well as from people working in the tourism industry around Ireland, is cautiously optimistic – particularly for quarters two and three of 2012.
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Great idea. Word of advice though. Drop the “not for profit” bit. You can do a whole lot with profit, the more profit the better.
When I hear not for profit I always think of large salaries & spending money randomly without benefit so it’s all gone by the end of the year.
If you set out to make a profit, you can do so much more with it, including finding future development of the product/s.
Well done. Everyone should be so very proud of you.
not for profit doesn’t mean no one gets paid or you can’t reinvest?
If you want to profit from the homeless great but “I’m out”
Well said OU 812 – Not for profit, then for what…??
For-profit businesses are why most of us have an income and a roof over our heads. Don’t be so quick to knock them.
This should be given out on the soup runs for those who do not want to or can’t access hostels etc. the government should sponsor it’s development.
This is quite like the American coat that becomes a sleeping bag at night. Saw on an article a few weeks ago. Good idea.
Fair play – what a great idea. Well done.
Well done to the student, while your all finding fault with her project your’re forgetting she is a school student that came up with this idea! Abit ahead of the adults I think !
Let the government buy them off you and hand them out to the homeless until they can find a better solution. Its the least they could do.
Perhaps Ming could make himself usefull and promote this idea……!!
Or Alan Kelly who is actually in government and made certain promises to the homeless! Maybe address your smart comments toward him.
Excellent work! This will most likely save many lives.
However I don’t like the idea of making it easy for the homeless to stay on the streets. They are motivated and driven off the streets for the issues addressed by this product.
This may just make things more comfortable for the homeless and junkies to stay on the streets. Here come the red thumbs!
So they’ll now think “why bother getting a house now, who needs education, a family, comfort, good health or safe protection from other homeless people, junkies and rapists, why would I want any of that now, I’ve made it, I’ve got my 1m wide strip of padded foil…”
I agree James it is a good temporary ‘Tech Fix’, but not the answer to the problem.
How do they get off the streets then if not to a coffin?
There is no rush to get them all a bedsit I think.
It looks like the covers that they put on boxes of bananas to keep them from getting too warm ,beleave it or not as Mr Ripley would say.
Saw this yesterday at the exhibition and it is a wonderful idea with great potential, well done Emily and all at Desmond College.
“The wrap itself is waterproof, inflammable, retains heat and has reflective strips to make it more noticeable.”. Inflammable?? Shouldn’t that say fireproof?
@Alan breen they both mean the same thing
Jimmy Murphy no they don’t,
@alan breen you’re right, inflammable means burns easily.
No Jimmy Murphy, they are polar opposites. Inflammable means easily set alight.
It says ‘non-flammable’.
If want to take this further take a read about the one in Detroit called the Empowerment Plan. The designer of the costs now trains and employs the homeless to make the costs/sleeping bags for others …fantastic!
http://www.empowermentplan.org
Good luck..
Just wondering what kind of the hostel can b so bad that homeless people choose sleep on the street instead?
Vadim, anecdotal evidence from homeless people who have used hostels, tells of drug use, robbery and intimidation. It appears there is little supervision in the dormitories.
Thanks for explaining. So this kind of hostels r only for homeless people.
Hostel won’t take druggies or troublemakers.
Perhaps there needs to be Garda on overnight to put a stop to certain activities.
Fantastic idea , can’t wait to see them littered all over Dublin’s inner city, makes a change from seeing abandoned sleeping bags I suppose .
I always said children were the future!
Eh was that not Whitney Houston ?
My apologies Alan Breen
Let those who refuse reasonable offers of help make their own way in life or death. Most of you would decry locking these people up for their own protection so why or how is this any different? Take the foil blankets of get no soup? Also I’d have concerns about giving any foil based product to addicts.
have your say