Overseas travel to and from Ireland continues to recover in August

Overseas travel to and from Ireland increased substantially in August when compared with July, according to the figures released by the country's Central Statistics Office (CSO) on Monday.

August saw 362,600 overseas arrivals in Ireland and 328,200 overseas departures from the country, up 59.5 percent and 19.2 percent respectively when compared with the previous month.

However, overseas travel in the month remained dramatically lower than in August 2019, when there were more than 2.25 million arrivals and 2.19 million departures, down 83.9 percent and 85 percent respectively.

In the January-August period of this year, over 3.77 million people arrived in

Ireland from overseas and an almost equal number of people traveled overseas from the country, down 72.7 percent and 72.8 percent respectively over a year ago, according to CSO.

Overseas travel to and from China has been seriously disrupted due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently the three direct flights between Ireland and China have all been suspended.

Last year, an estimated 100,000 people from China visited Ireland, according to Tourism Ireland, a state agency responsible for promoting Irish tourism overseas. Tourism Ireland plans to increase the number of Chinese tourists to Ireland to 200,000 by 2025.