Most Irish holidayed at home in 2011

Given our weather you might suspect that Irish holidaymakers would make a beeline for the sun the first chance they get – but you would be wrong.

The majority of Irish people holidayed at home in 2011, according to Eurostat figures released yesterday, while a third of those who travelled abroad chose Britain as their first choice of holiday destination.

A quarter of Irish people who took a foreign holiday in 2011 set off to Spain, while 7 per cent headed to Portugal. France and the US also made it into the top five foreign holiday destinations for Irish people.

The majority of the 10.9 million trips that Irish people took in 2011 were “staycations” with 57 per cent – some 6.2 million holidays – taken at home.

However, the duration of home-holidays was much shorter than foreign trips. The average length of a “staycation” was just three nights, compared with an average of almost nine nights for foreign holidays.

Spending more abroad
We Irish also splashed our cash a lot more abroad. We spent more than €5.1 billion on holidays in 2011, €3.8 billion of which was spent on foreign holidays, while €1.3 billion was spent domestically.

Ireland was the fifth most popular holiday destination for UK residents, who made more than 2.2 million trips to Ireland in 2011, and the fourth most popular for Romanian nationals.

Spain was the overall destination of choice among European holidaymakers in 2011, with 13 per cent choosing it as their destination followed by Italy and France at 9 per cent each.