The Irish Tourist Industry Confederation's (ITIC) review of 2013 reveals that visitor arrivals were up six per cent to nearly seven million, the best year since 2009.

A big contributor to the figures was The Gathering and its year-long programme of events, which - with a 26 per cent increase in transatlantic air services - attracted more than one million visitors from the US, a record.

Visits from the UK showed an increase for the first time in several years, to 2.9 million, while 2.5 million people came from mainland Europe and a further 400,000 from elsewhere.

The increased numbers meant that tourism businesses were able to create 15,000 additional jobs over the past two years, while earnings from those visitors were up 13 per cent to finish at €3.3bn (£2.7bn) - tourists were seen to be spending more and staying longer.

ITIC says that Irish Government moves to maintain the nine percent VAT rate on tourism services and the suspension of the Air Travel Tax were welcome measures which were helping to restore the country's competitiveness.

Elsewhere, The Wild Atlantic Way, a major new touring route along the western seaboard first proposed by ITIC in its 2011 report New Directions for Tourism in The West, has been launched by Fáilte Ireland.

Looking ahead, Tourism Ireland is targeting growth of four per cent in visitor arrivals in 2014, a figure which ITIC believes may prove to be conservative if Ireland can continue to capture an increasing share of leisure traffic from the improving economies in most main source markets.