Tourism trends
Tourism performance trends - current and historical figures are presented for total trips and holiday trips by market area and data on nights and spend are also provided.
The tourism sector is an important part of Northern Ireland’s economy, welcoming 5.4 million overnight visitors in 2023, who stayed 16.5 million nights and spent £1.2 billion.
In 2023 over 3 million out of state visitors (visitors from outside NI) took an overnight trip in NI, double the number we welcomed in 2000 (1.5m), and if we look back to 1972 this figure was less than half a million.*
The closer to home markets have been performing well, with spend on ROI overnight trips in NI more than doubling in the last five years.
*Figures are not directly comparable due to changes in methodologies used to measure tourism performance.