Updated 12.35pm

TOURISM IRELAND BELIEVE there will never be a better time to visit Ireland this year despite the latest figures showing that there were fewer overseas visitors to Ireland in 2010.

Tourism Ireland launched a multi-million euro marketing campaign earlier this month aimed at getting Ireland’s tourism industry moving again with Central Statistics Office (CSO) figures from recent years showing a decline in the number of overseas visitors to Ireland.

The very latest CSO figures show that visitors to Ireland have decreased by 12.9 per cent in 2010 compared to 2009.

Trips by residents from Great Britain fell by 8.7 per cent in the last quarter of 2010.

However, there was positive news with the number of visitors from North America up by 13.9 per cent and wisitors from other areas outside of Europe was up by 9.2 per cent in the last quarter.

While acknowledging the difficulties faced by Ireland in the current economic climate Niall Gibbons, chief executive of Tourism Ireland, told TheJournal.ie that the figures were not as bad as expected given the weather conditions in Ireland in the last part of 2010.

He added that there were “green shoots” of positivity from the increase in visitors from the US and European countries like France and said that Tourism Ireland was now focused on increasing the number of visitors from Britian.

The CSO figures also showed that trips by Irish people abroad were down by 10 per cent in the last quarter of 2010 .