Overseas visitors to Ireland spent a total of 2.27 billion euros (2.64 billion U.S. dollars) in the first half of 2018, up 8.5 percent compared with the same period in 2017, according to the statistics released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) on Wednesday.

When carrier fares are included, the figure stood at nearly 3.1 billion euros, up 8.1 percent over a year, said the CSO.

When carrier fares are excluded, the revenue from visitors from Europe other than Britain went up by 12.2 percent while that from North American visitors rose by 9.4 percent, it said, adding that earnings from British visitors only increased by 0.6 percent in the first half of this year.

Earnings from visitors from other parts of the world also saw a strong growth of 8.6 percent in the first half of this year, said the CSO.

Commenting on the CSO figures, Irish Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Shane Rose, said that "The very positive returns from areas such as Mainland Europe and North America show the importance the tourism agencies place on these high-value markets."

In addition, Ireland's efforts to implement a market diversification strategy has also begun to pay off as the data released by the CSO has indicated, he said.

"Although the performance from most markets is encouraging, we need to be keenly aware of the economic uncertainty wee face internationally with the real possibility of knock-on effects for tourism from issues such as Brexit and possible trade disputes," he warned.

He called the Irish tourism industry to explore new and developing markets to ensure it can survive any adverse economic developments in some of its major markets.

According to the CSO, a total of 4.87 million overseas visitors visited Ireland in the first half of this year, up 6.7 percent over a year ago. (1 euro=1.163 U.S. dollars)