Tourism Ireland reports that CSO figures for January-May 2019 show an increase in overseas arrivals of 3.7% overall - around 141K more arrivals that Jan-May 2018. But May arrivals were down by 0.4% overall, with those from Britain and mainland Europe were down down 4.4% and 4.6%, respectively.

On the brighter side, arrivals from North America were up 9.1%, with nearly 68K incremental arrivals from the USA and Canada. Other long-haul markets were up 7.2%.

Tourism Ireland CEO Niall Gibbons said, in part:

“Brexit remains an ongoing challenge, giving rise to consumer uncertainty, particularly in Britain and some Mainland European markets. The fall in the value of sterling has made holidays and short breaks here more expensive for British visitors and has made Britain more affordable for visitors from many of our top markets. Ireland needs to be seen as offering an excellent value-for-money holiday experience, so competitiveness and value for money remain more important than ever in Britain. We continue to monitor the situation closely, working in conjunction with our British-based Brexit Taskforce."

Tourism Ireland has recently launched an ambitious new marketing strategy aimed at increasing annual spend by visitors from Britain by 25% to €705M by 2022.

Go here for the CSO May 2019 Overseas Travel Report .