Belfast welcomes Irish invasion

The weakness of the pound against the euro is prompting record numbers of people from the Republic of Ireland to make day trips to Belfast.

Belfast City Council has said more than four out of five out of all day-trippers in 2008 were from the Republic.

They also made up almost 25% of those staying overnight.

That represented a massive growth on the previous year when cross-border visitors made up a third of day trippers and just 9% of overnight stays.

The figures were contained in the Belfast Tourism Monitor - an annual analysis of the city's tourism industry.

The figures showed that while the overall number of visitors to the city rose by just 3%, the number of out-of-state visitors rose by 43% and day-trippers to Belfast by a huge 143%.

Christmas

Councillor William Humphrey, chairman of the council's development committee, said: "This growth can be largely attributed to the growing number of visitors from the Republic of Ireland, many of them taking advantage of the strength of the euro against sterling, especially in the run up to last Christmas."

The tourist exchange rate between the pound and euro reached parity - or worse - in 2008, prompting many people in the Republic to take advantage and shop in Northern Ireland.

However, the Belfast figures show that 52% of the visitors' spending went to restaurants and hotels and this rose to 74% for conference delegates and 76% of other business visitors.

The survey showed 67% of all the people who visited Belfast in 2008 were doing so for the first time.