Visitors from the Republic drive up NI tourism

A recovery in tourism spending in Northern Ireland in 2025 was driven by holidaymakers from the Republic of Ireland, official data has suggested.

There were an estimated 5.1m overnight trips with associated spending of £1.2bn, up by 9% on 2024.

Overnight trips from the Republic were up by 15% from 1.1m to 1.3m.

Spending by those visitors was up by 31% from £243m to £317m.

An increase in tourists from the Republic has been the most prominent feature of Northern Ireland's post-pandemic tourism bounce back.

Several factors are likely to have contributed to that trend, including changing consumer behaviour during the pandemic.

Travel restrictions meant people could not travel internationally and so were more likely to explore destinations closer to home.

That led to an initial bump in visitor numbers, which has been sustained.

Northern Ireland may also be viewed as offering better value for money than the Republic for short breaks and there has been increased marketing by Tourism NI.

The 2025 figures also suggest that spending by GB visitors and NI residents also increased after a weaker 2024.

The NI Statistics and Research Agency, which produced the figures, said: "The NI domestic tourism market has shown promising growth in 2025 after a sharp decline in 2024.

"However, despite an encouraging recovery in 2025 (12% increase in trips to 1.8m from 2024), NI overnight trips has not yet returned to the 2.1m NI resident overnight trips recorded in 2023."

The main negative in the figures was a small decline in international visitors.