Irish travel and tourism booking engine Gulliver Ireland has reported a 33pc increase in tourism bookings on its GoIreland.com website for 2006, with some 44,000 bookings adding up to €8.5m in revenues.
Gulliver said that nearly half – some 45pc – of GoIreland.com’s bookings were domestically sourced while 25pc came from the UK and a further 14pc from the US.
This strong domestic booking trend has been constant for the past three years, growing 29pc in 2004 and 37pc in 2005.
Germany and France also made the top five country booking source list for 2006.
Gulliver said that the hotel sector secured 57pc of GoIreland.com’s tourism bookings, up 34pc on 2005, while the B&B sector accounted for 30pc of the market and the guesthouse business accounted for 8pc of the market.
Dublin (34pc share), the south-west (16pc share) and the west (14pc share) were the three regions to secure the most bookings in 2006.
GoIreland.com is averaging over 54,000 visitors per week and was the most booked Gulliver-powered website last year.
In related news, Irishman Ken Sheridan from Co Meath won the GoIreland.com Photography Awards. His photograph, entitled Under Construction, of the transformation of Dublin along the Liffey beat thousands of amateur tourist photographer entries from around the world.
By John Kennedy
