REVEALED: Offaly is one of the least popular tourist destinations in the country

Offaly has been revealed at the fourth least popular county for tourists by a Failte Ireland report.

While the tourism numbers in the county have not decreased year-on-year, they have plateaued. The figures show that 52,000 overseas visitors came to Offaly as part of their trip in 2017, generating €16 million for the local economy. 

228,000 homegrown trips were made to Offaly in the same period, generating €30 million for the economy, bringing Offaly's tourism total to an estimated €46 million, €18 million less than neighbours Westmeath who generated €64 million between both homegrown and overseas tourism.

Offaly did generate more tourism revenue than both Laois and Longford in 2017. Laois has a €44 million tourism industry while Longford generated just €28 million, although their figure is likely to grow in the coming years with the opening of their Center Parcs holiday development. 

These figures show that the Midlands was the least visited region in the country in 2017 with just 218,000 overseas tourists, down from 226,000 the year before.

Dublin still enjoys the largest share of the tourism pot with 5.9 million overseas visited making their way to the capital, spending a whopping €2 billion.

Galway, Cork and Kerry enjoy over one million overseas visitors a year, while counties like Clare also performed very well in the figures which were produced using a Fáilte Ireland survey of 10,000 overseas travellers and data provided by the Central Statistics Office and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency.

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