Overseas travel gathers pace in July - CSO

July 2020 overseas travel to and from Ireland increased substantially compared to June as COVID-19 restrictions were eased. July 2020 saw 227,300 overseas arrivals and 275,400 overseas departures.

These compare with 57,100 arrivals and 73,900 departures in the previous month, increases of 298.1% and 272.7% respectively.

​Nevertheless, overseas travel in July 2020 remained dramatically lower than in July 2019, when there were 2,225,900 arrivals and 2,183,900 departures, falls of 89.8% and 87.4% respectively.

Of the 227,300 persons arriving in Ireland in July 2020, 188,100 (82.7%) arrived by air and 39,200 (17.3%) arrived by sea. Of the 275,400 persons departing Ireland, 239,000 (86.8%) departed by air and 36,400 (13.2%) departed by sea.

Of those arriving in Ireland, 97,100 (42.7%) came by cross-channel routes, 114,800 (50.5%) by continental routes, 8,800 (3.9%) by transatlantic routes and 6,600 (2.9%) by other overseas routes. The corresponding figures for those departing Ireland were 82,800 (30.1%), 182,400 (66.2%), 4,600 (1.7%) and 5,600 (2.0%) respectively.

The most important staging countries for persons travelling overseas to Ireland were Great Britain (97,100), Spain (23,000) and France (13,200). The most important staging countries for persons travelling overseas from Ireland were Great Britain (82,800), Spain (38,500) and Poland (23,800). 

For the year-to-date (January-July), 3,414,000 persons arrived in Ireland from overseas and 3,448,700 persons departed. These both represent decreases of 70.5% compared to the same period in 2019.

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