Irish spend €47m more on foreign holidays in first half of year

While Irish people took fewer foreign holidays in the first six months of the year, they increased spend on holidays abroad by €47m, figures released yesterday show.

The number and length of foreign holidays taken by Irish people fell by 2 per cent in the first six months of the year compared with the same period last year, according to Central Statistics office figures released today .

However this was not because of an increase people staying in Ireland, as the number of domestic holidays fell by 6 per cent and shortened by 4 per cent, the Household Travel survey for the January to June period 2013 shows. The amount of money Irish people spent on domestic holidays also fell by an estimated €6m (2 per cent), it shows.

The figures show the overall trips made from Ireland abroad by location for which holidays account almost half. Overall there was a 1 per cent decline in trips abroad.

It shows a decline in trips to mainland European countries with visits to Germany down 11 per cent , to France down 8 per cent and to Italy down 7.5per cnet.

Spain retined its popularity as the second most popular destination after the UK seeing a less than 0.5 per cent decline in trips.

Trips further afield to Asia and the Middle East were also down (12 per cent) while trips to North America were down 2.5 per cent. However Britain bucked the trend with trips (excluding Northern Ireland) up 5 per cent while trips across the Border were down 16 per cent.

While the number of holidays fell there was a sharp increase in business trips abroad (14 per cent) while trips to friends and relatives abroad were up 4 per cent, the figures show. Expenditure on business trips was up by €66m while expenditure on trips to visit relatives were up €26m, figures show.

In the year of the Gathering, spend on domestic visits to family and relatives in Ireland were also up by €19m (up 6 per cent in number of trips). The number of domestic business trips remained static while the spend on such trips was down almost€5m. Overall domestic travel fell by 3 per cent in the first six months of the year but this was slightly up (0.5 per cent ) in the April to June period.

The fall in domestic holidays hit the number of trips to self-catering accomodation which was down 11 per cent while trips to accomodation categorised as other (such as camping, own holiday home, B&B) were down 18 per cent. Hotels retained their status as the most popular accomodation choice slightly up on the same period last year.

The CSO survey is postal and involves random samples of 4,600 households looking at domestic and outbound travel patterns which involve overnight stays of residents of the State.