Dublin, Aug 31 (IANS): July witnessed a total of 380,700 passengers arriving in Ireland from overseas, up 138 per cent from the previous month, said the country's Central Statistics Office (CSO).

Industry watchers attributed the sharp rise mainly to the relaxing of restrictions on international travellers to Ireland in July, reports Xinhua news agency.

From July 19, Ireland has no longer required travellers from other European Union countries to quarantine on arrival if they are fully vaccinated against Covid-19, have recovered from the disease in the past six months, or have had a negative PCR test within 72 hours of arrival.

The rules have also been relaxed for travellers from the US, the UK, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, and contributed to a year-on-year rise of 67.5 per cent in July overseas passenger arrivals in Ireland.

However, the July 2021 figure is still 82.9 per cent lower than before the pandemic in July 2019, when the country saw over 2.2 million passengers arriving from abroad, said the CSO.

Of the overseas passengers arriving in Ireland in July, 85.8 per cent came by air and 14.2 per cent by sea, while 57.2 per cent via by the European continental route, 32.3 per cent across the channel from the UK, and 7 per cent by the transatlantic route.

The CSO also said that Britain was the most important routing country in July, accounting for over 32 per cent of total arrivals in the month, followed by Spain and Poland.

In the first seven months of this year, 919,800 passengers arrived in Ireland from overseas, down 73 per cent compared with the same period last year.