THE GUINNESS STOREHOUSE recorded another record-breaking year, remaining the most popular tourist attraction in Ireland.

A total of 1,711,281 visitors passed through its doors over the course of 2017, up from 1.5 million the year previous.

This brings the total number of visitors since it first opened in 2000 to 18 million.

Welcoming these figures, managing director Paul Carty said:

Our aim is to position Ireland and the Guinness Storehouse as a year-round, ‘must visit’ destination and to ensure that the contribution of overseas tourism to the economy continues to expand.

“This year we saw a strong market diversification and visitor growth from long-haul markets in Asia Pacific.”

The Guinness Storehouse also released an independently-conducted survey of more than 500 visitors which found that 34% said the attraction was crucial in their decision to visit Ireland.

The report says this translates in to an economic contribution of €361.2 million over one year.

2018 will see a number of changes at the St James’s Gate attraction. A multi-million-euro expansion of its iconic Gravity Bar will see it double in size.

Construction is also expected to begin on the Guinness Storehouse Hub, which will be located adjacent to the storehouse building and used for retail storage, as an employee hub and to house the Guinness archives.

In addition to these changes, Diageo announced plans to build a new whiskey distillery and to develop an urban quarter at the site of the Guinness brewery.

FactCheck: Would the new alcohol bill ban the Guinness Christmas ad? >

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