Tourism Performance Statistics

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Research & Insights

These figures include NI annual and quarterly tourism performance, tourism industry barometers, accommodation statistics, visitor experience and attitude surveys.

Tourism 360° Performance Update

The Tourism 360° Performance Update summarises the latest available research and insights including Northern Ireland hotel performance, Tourism NI's analysis of digital data sources and more.

To view the Tourism 360° Performance Update reports in full, please click below:

NI Annual and Quarterly Tourism Performance

Summary reports published by Tourism NI

Annual and Quarterly Tourism Performance Statistics are published by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) and the Central Statistics Office (CSO). Tourism Northern Ireland produces reports to provide an overview of these and other statistics, together with industry sentiment.

Annual Statistics

Full year 2024 figures released by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) relating to overnight trips taken in Northern Ireland (NI) are presented below.

NISRA data indicates a downturn in our closer to home visitor numbers in 2024, broadly stable visitors from Great Britain (GB) and strong growth from Other Overseas visitors. Encouragingly, North American trips were up by one quarter compared to January-December 2023 with NI’s food and drink offering as well as world class attractions being the main influences driving visits.

2024 saw declines in holiday trips and those visiting friends/relatives. Business trips saw a smaller decline, while those visiting for other reasons grew by 10%.

The proportion of overnight trips taken outside Belfast in 2024 (69%) remains unchanged from last year.

NISRA hotel and small service accommodation performance data points to growth in room occupancies and increases of 11% and 8%, respectively, in room sales during January-December 2024. Self-catering occupancy was also up on 2023 levels.

Tourism NI’s sentiment research with NI and ROI consumers (September 2024) highlighted competition from abroad, and the increased impact of cost-of-living on travel behaviours. NISRA’s outbound tourism statistics report declines in NI residents’ trips to all markets except Other Overseas in 2024, suggesting that holidays abroad were prioritised over trips closer to home, possibly linked to a drop in NI’s value for money perception.

Looking ahead to 2025, Tourism NI’s latest consumer sentiment research in NI and the Republic of Ireland (ROI) indicates that stable NI trip intentions were evident for both domestic and ROI consumers.