DUBLIN, March 29 (Xinhua) -- The number of overseas visitors to Ireland continued to fall sharply in February, with no imminent improvement in sight for the country's tourism sector, showed the statistics released here on Monday.
In February, only 54,800 people visited Ireland from abroad, down 49.2 percent when compared with January and 95.5 percent lower when compared with February 2020, said the country's national statistics bureau CSO.
Of all the overseas visitors to Ireland in the month, 92.1 percent of them arrived by air while 7.9 percent of them arrived by sea, said the CSO in a statement.
The European continent contributed 57.6 percent to the total number of overseas visitors to Ireland in February, followed by Britain (24 percent), according to the CSO figures.
During the first two months of this year, a total of 162,800 people visited Ireland from overseas, down 93.4 percent year-on-year, said the CSO.
Ireland reported its first confirmed case of COVID-19 at the end of February 2020.
The mandatory hotel quarantine regime recently implemented by the Irish government could further reduce the number of overseas visitors in the coming months, warned industry officials.
Starting from last Friday, the Irish government demanded a 14-day mandatory quarantine at a designated facility for all the people arriving in Ireland from 33 countries and regions deemed high risk for COVID-19 transmission.
Those who do not come from the high-risk areas but fail to produce a negative result of a COVID-19 test conducted within 72 hours prior to their arrival will also have to be quarantined for 14 days.
In 2019, over 10 million people visited Ireland from abroad, of which an estimated 100,000 came from China, according to Tourism Ireland, a state agency. Enditem
