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Paddy's Day sales lift for Dublin City

Tuesday, March 12 10:21:01

Dublin City Business Improvement District (BID), which represents 2,500 businesses in Dublin City Centre, today said businesses are ready to welcome the increased number of visitors to the city centre this week.

Dublin City BID has already seen an increase of enquires about the festival, since as early as last week, to its city centre Ambassadors and Information Kiosks, (located at the top of Grafton Street, at the Molly Malone Statute and O'Connell Street near the Spire). Apart from the Christmas period the St. Patrick's festival is one of their busiest weeks. The BID City Centre Ambassadors, who speak with over 250,000 visitors each year, can see a 30pc increase in enquiries to the information kiosks during the festival week.

With the strong Gathering element to this year's festival, the city centre is expected to see an increase in numbers compared with previous years. Dublin City BID, who monitor and track the footfall in the city centre through its network of specialised cameras, said the week of St. Patrick's Festival can see footfall figures climb from 2.8 million on a normal week to 3.4 million, an increase of 21pc. The organisers of the St Patrick's Festival have said the numbers of participants in the parade and expected foreign visitors are up this year, giving the potential for this to be the busiest St. Patrick's Festival to date.

Richard Guiney, CEO of Dublin City BID said: "St. Patrick's Day is the busiest day of the year on the streets of Dublin, in terms of footfall. Last year we had 557,588 visitors in town on the day. Dublin City Centre is a great place to be, not just on St. Patrick's Day itself but throughout the five day festival. This year the programme is bursting with great events taking place all over town. And with Dublin's Creative Quarter and Dame District Area recently being awarded a Purple Flag for excellence in the management of the night time economy there is the plenty to explore for visitors and Dubliners alike during the celebrations."