The number of tourists visiting Ireland has increased by almost 8%.
That is according to the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
They show that 6.6 million people travelled from overseas to Ireland last year which is 500,000 more than in 2010.
And it seems those visitors are staying for longer.
The number of nights spent in Ireland by overseas travellers rose by over 6% in 2011 up from 48 million to 50.9 million.
Meanwhile expenditure here by overseas travellers increased by 0.7% between 2010 and 2011 from €3,556 million to €3,580 million.
The largest increase in overseas travellers was by Other Europe (excluding the UK) residents, who made 238,000 additional trips in 2011 compared to 2010.
This was an increase of 11.4%.
The number of overseas trips made by residents of the UK increased by 123,000 – or 4.4% – in last year.
The largest increase in the number of overseas trips to Ireland by reason for journey occurred amongst those coming for the purpose of holiday, leisure and recreation.
These trips rose by 274,000 when compared with 2010.
However it seems the trend is reversing for Irish people going abroad.
The statistics show that in 2011 the number of overseas trips made by Irish residents fell by 4.2% from 6.7 million to 6.4 million.
In line with that the total overseas expenditure by Irish residents declined by 7.2%, from €5,211 million in 2010 to €4,835 million last year.
The routes that experienced the largest percentage decline were the transatlantic routes which fell by 9.3%.
The average length of stay by Irish residents on overseas trips also fell.
While between 2010 and 2011 total expenditure (including fares) of Irish people on overseas trips fell by €329 million.
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