It said visitors spent €477m on their trips, not including fares, down over 21pc on the same month last year.
However, the figures have again been disputed by the tourism industry, which is not experiencing a double-digit decrease in numbers or revenue.
Eoghan O’Mara Walsh, chief executive of the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation, said data provided by hotels, airports, visitor attractions and coach companies suggests the market is stable.
“The US market is performing very well, but there is a weakness with Great Britain and Europe,” he said.
“Air access from the US into Ireland has never been stronger, and they are filling those planes. Inflation in America is out of control, so Ireland looks like value for money. For the remainder of the summer the US business on the books looks pretty strong.”
Other European countries are also experiencing a post-pandemic rebound of US tourism. More than 7.7 million Americans travelled to Europe in the first five months of the year, up 6pc on the same period last year, according to the US National Travel and Tourism Office.
This has taken the industry by surprise, as last summer there was a tourism bounce from the Olympics being staged in Paris and a Taylor Swift tour which took in France, Sweden, Portugal, Germany and Spain.
There is a continuing disconnect between the tourism statistics being provided by the CSO, mostly down year-on-year, and what the industry says it is experiencing. The methodologies are different, with the CSO doing a survey on departing passengers, and the industry counting “bums on seats and heads on pillows”, as Mr O’Mara Walsh puts it.
He believe the misalignment began in the first half of last year, when the CSO recorded a surge in tourism numbers.
“They were reporting really buoyant numbers, and the industry wasn’t feeling that on the ground,” he said. “Now we are contrasting to 2024, which is giving us this comparison problem.”
The Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) said, while there is still a disparity, the CSO data is now more in line with what businesses have been reporting on the ground, taking account of the contribution by domestic tourism.
IHF president Michael Magner said: “Our figures indicate that hotel room occupancy levels are holding steady so far this year compared with 2024. However, this is only part of the picture. It conceals significant challenges around business margins due to already exceptionally high business costs, which continue to rise while revenues remain flat.”
The average length of stay for foreign visitors in May was 7.3 nights, slightly up on last year, but down from 7.8 nights in 2023, the CSO data says.
“Visitors stayed a total of 4.1 million nights in the country, a drop of 8pc when compared with May 2024, and down 9pc compared with May 2023,” the CSO said.
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