The amount of money people are spending on domestic travel has dropped to its lowest level for four years, according to the latest figures released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) today.
The figures for July to September 2009 showed Irish residents spent €501.2 million on domestic travel in the third quarter of last year, down 15.5 per cent from a year earlier.
While the amount of money spent dropped significantly, the number of trips people took domestically remained steady, with a slight decline of 1.3 per cent to 2,512,000 over the same period.
Total nights spent away fell by just 3.3 per cent to 10,555,000 with holiday trips down 5.4 per cent to 1,494,000. The overall average length of stay dropped to just over 4 nights.
When broken down by region the number of nights spent in the Border, Midland and Western region was up 5 per cent to 3,449,000 however spending was down 3.4 per cent to €180m.
In the Southern and Eastern region total nights spent fell by 7 per cent to 7,106,000 and spending was down by a much more substantial 21 per cent to €321.2 million.
The figures also showed Irish residents took 2,232,000 trips abroad, down 9.7 per cent on the previous year, with most travellers favouring shorter stays.
Trips of up to 3 nights increased by 8.6 per cent to 480,000 however, longer stay trips fell by 13.7 per cent to 1,752,000.
The statistics also reveal a large jump in the number of trips involving private vehicles and ferries at the expense of air travel.
Trips using private motor vehicles increased 47 per cent to 197,000, while sea/cruises were up 29.8 per cent to 183,000 when compared to the third quarter in 2008. Air travel fell by 15.3 per cent to 1,800,000 over the same period.
Irish residents spent a total of €1,809.2 million on foreign travel down by just over a quarter from a year earlier. Of this, holiday expenditure accounted for €1,361.4 million down 30 per cent from third quarter in 2008.
