Donegal fails to benefit from increased visitor numbers to Ireland

Despite final figures for the end of this year expected to show a significant increase in visitor numbers to Ireland, Donegal business are reporting no positive bounce.
There was a 10% increase in visitors from continental Europe, an 8% rise in numbers coming from North America, and a 5% rise in British tourists.
The number of overseas visitors increased by an overall 7 per cent this year, the first increase since 2007, which was a record year for the tourism industry.
While the 2011 figures indicated a turnaround for the industry, they followed several years of declining visitor numbers.
Dublin, Galway and Killarney are among areas that reported better returns than in 2010.
In contrast, businesses in many other parts of the Republic continued to struggle to remain viable, with some areas not seeing increased visitor numbers.
Donegal and the Northwest in general had seen no real improvement.
The Irish Tourism Industry Confederation has said that while the number of visitors is increasing, people are coming for a shorter length of time.
The group added that while Dublin is successful in terms of attracting people for short city breaks, unless you have people for 10 days you can’t really include the northwest.