Never have so many travelled so often abroad, whether for sun, shopping or a second home, writes Kate Holmquist.
How many trips abroad are you taking this year? Three? Four? Is that all? By the way, if you haven't got your sunshine idyll booked for the October school holidays, you may be too late. Although you could always pick up something last-minute on the internet - something cultural, say.
You're not going to Florida, are you? Why not Egypt? And don't forget, if this is the year that you're "doing" South Africa, remember to book your private guide. You wouldn't want to be dragged through the Shamwari on a tour bus, would you?
The affluent upper-middle-classes don't just take holidays any more. They have exotic adventures, sports breaks, shopping trips and quirky mini-breaks to "authentic" non-Starbucked cities in Latvia, Lithuania and Slovenia. They fly off at the weekend on a whim and a credit card to take advantage of the latest online seat sale - the travel industry's equivalent of speed dating.
The once-a-year package to Marbella (booked in January and the subject of frantic saving until June) of 20 years ago has evolved into a sophisticated holiday portfolio. This may include visits to second and third homes abroad in addition to winter weekends at the place "down the country" - a lifestyle unheard of for all but the perma-tanned, jet-setting elite in the 1980s.
The number of Irish travelling to second and third homes in Europe tripled between 2000 and 2004, according to figures published by the Central Statistics Office this week.
The overall increase in international travelling - up 50 per cent on four years ago - is accounted for by multiple holiday-taking within Europe. (While travel to the US is up on last year, it has only just returned to 2000 levels, while travel to Australia, Africa and New Zealand is steady.)
"Ten years ago, people went to a hotel down the country for a weekend, now they choose a European city break or a four-star hotel in Latvia," says Dr Zeine Mottiar, lecturer in tourism at Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT).
Claire Dunne of the Travel Broker in Dublin, and 25 years in the travel business, says the typical holiday portfolio includes a winter's week of sun or skiing (often during the mid-term school break), two or three weekend breaks throughout the year, a summer "holiday" of 10-14 days or longer as the main break with the children, then a shopping weekend in New York in October/November for Mum, a golfing weekend in Spain for Dad, and perhaps a hop over to Marbella for a few days to stave off the winter blues before Christmas.
Once every few years, such travellers might push the boat out and visit New Zealand, Australia, Central America or Africa - although the number of Irish travelling to those regions haven't yet showed any significant change.
This holiday portfolio will cost a minimum of €22,500, and as much as €40,000 depending on the size of the family and whether an exotic summer voyage is included.
"There aren't necessarily more individuals taking holidays abroad; the same people are taking more international holidays," adds Dr Bernadette Quinn, travel geographer and lecturer at DIT.
"'Rip-off Ireland' is a factor, but not a key factor. It's really due to low-cost flights, online booking and the maturing of the Irish holiday consumer market so that people want to move farther afield and look for new experiences. It's an anticipated evolutionary development," Quinn says.
As Tony Brazil of Limerick Travel puts it: "There is an imperative to leave the island."
Last year the Irish spent more money abroad than foreign visitors spent here. Visitors to Ireland are likely to be greeted by non-Irish staff in hotels and restaurants although Brazil says, perhaps optimistically, this has brought a "vitality" to the industry.
Middle-aged people and children, rather than the unencumbered twentysomethings, are indulging in the wanderlust fad. Travel by 20-29 year olds increased by a mere 5 per cent in the past four years. The fastest-growing markets are children up to 14 (up 70 per cent), followed by 40- to 49-year-olds (up 65 per cent), 30- to 39-year-olds (up 50 per cent) and 50- to 70-year-olds (up 40 per cent). Active over-70s took 223,000 trips in 2004, up 50 per cent on 2000.
A hunger for exotic adventures is taking many families farther afield than Europe. "A few years ago, a private safari in South Africa was unheard of. Today, it's not beyond the means of the comfortably off. Families combine a week's safari with their own guide and a week of relaxation in a nice hotel," says Dunne.
That will be a four-star hotel, by the way, adds Tanya Airey, managing director of Sunway Holidays in Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin. The trend is away from self-catering and towards luxury now that people are taking shorter, more frequent, breaks. A summer package is still part of the portfolio for many people (1.1 million package holidays were sold last year).
EIGHTY PER CENT of Sunway Holidays' clients are booking one week in the summer now, rather than two weeks, whereas four years ago two-thirds opted for two weeks. Sunway's family clients are spreading their holidays out over the year, booking well in advance according to the school calendar with trips at half-term, Easter, the summer and again in October.
"There's a 'feel-good factor' and bookings are way up at the moment," says Airey. Many families are choosing package activity holidays, such as Sunsail, where children are offered organised watersports and supervision all day while the parents relax with a G and T by the pool or see the sights.
Fairly typical of today's multi-break traveller, interior designer Marian Nolan, who runs Paradigm Design in Malahide, Dublin, will spend a couple of weeks in Spain with her four children this summer just to "relax and chill". The winter will see a family holiday in the Canaries and/or a few days skiing in Austria. In between, she will take a few weekends "here and there" in, for example, Milan and Bologna and she will travel once or twice to New York for shopping. There will be business travel in addition to that and, due to the weakness of the dollar and the strength of the pound, her annual trip to London will be all business. It's no longer the favourite shopping destination now that New York is so cheap.
Twenty years ago a "holiday" for many fairly average people was two weeks in a B&B or caravan in Bundoran, Courtown or Salthill, but these types of accommodation are now in decline. In 1985, when the unemployment rate was 20 per cent, you had to be relatively affluent to afford two weeks of sun, sea and sand in Spain, Greece or Portugal. If you were really in the money, you had a winter holiday in Florida as well.
Summer holiday planning started after Christmas when the woman of the house spread a sheaf of glossy holiday brochures on the kitchen table and the man of the house paid the deposit. (These gender roles aren't deliberately sexist; they still exist and are backed up by research conducted at DIT.)
In 1988-89, fortunes began to improve so quickly that by 1991, 451,000 people took package holidays and by the end of the decade that figure had doubled. But travel agents are again being challenged: twice as many people booked online as used travel agents and self-tailored mini-breaks are now just as popular as package holidays. Travel agents stress using an agent ensures security, convenience and "comeback" should things go pear-shaped.
Don't write off the package holiday industry just yet, says Gillian Bowler, chairwoman of Budget Travel, Fáilte Ireland and Irish Life and Permanent. Budget's business is growing by 10 per cent per annum. A new product, Budget Air, is appealing to the cash-rich, time-poor professional who wants to be able to flee the island at short notice with flexible flight dates that offer the convenience and value of a package, without limiting them to week-long units.
"People have got much better at managing their time. Some of those in need of a bit of sun are flying out to Malaga for just three or four days," says Bowler, who insists package holidays are cheaper than mix-and-match holidays plucked off the internet.
Boutique travel agents are part of the trend towards activity, sports and cultural holidays. One of these, Anthony Collins of Directski.com, is capitalising on Irish skiers' growing sophistication by offering more choice, guiding skiers towards the more expensive French Alps (about €3,000 per person for a week when all costs are accounted for) rather than, for example, mass-market Andorra.
Neil Holman has started privatetravelguides.com, an Irish-based international online service offering private guides in India and Asia ($60 or €47 a day), the Middle East and Ukraine ($90 or €70 a day) for independent travellers, including families, who want to experience different cultures. He has learnt from market research that middle-aged people who have seen their children travel extensively now want a bit of the action.
"Parents have sent their children off on gap years with backpacks," says Holman. "Now that the children have grown up, the parents want some adventure too, except they're staying in four-star hotels instead of hostels and they're hiring private guides with postgraduate degrees and excellent English to show them the sights."
THE TREND TOWARDS the educational, specialist trip is being developed in the domestic market too. Jean Byrne of Killiney, Co Dublin, a business mentor and ministerial appointee to the board of the Crafts Council, has been to Paris, New Zealand and Portugal so far this year. Over the years she has travelled the world several times and "seen it all". But while she's been to the opera at Verona and the Met, nothing beats the Opera Theatre Company's performance she attended last August in the quarry on Valentia Island, Co Kerry, she says.
Her most recent holiday was a wildlife weekend organised by the Killarney National Park Outdoor Centre, where she went on a night-time "bat walk", woke up at 6am for the dawn chorus, attended lectures on the Atlantic charfish and took a three-hour hike through a magical yew forest.
"When I was 18 years old, I first visited the Beara peninsula and stood looking across to the Iveragh peninsula. I was absolutely spellbound and after travelling the world, I have realised that there is no place like it in terms of sheer heaven."
That's exactly what the many thousands whose livelihoods rely on the domestic tourism industry want to hear. The trend toward foreign travel is not harming rural economies, says Mottiar. People with second homes in Ireland such as Byrne, who has just built a house in Co Kerry, are spending an average of 63 nights a year in their rural homes, contributing to local economies with higher than average expenditure, sometimes purchasing goods to bring back to Dublin.
But the long summer in the beachside mobile home is on the way out, according to Mottiar's research. In Courtown, Co Wexford, for instance, he found families use these for weekends and take their "holidays" outside the State.
Rainy, rip-off Ireland is a perception the domestic tourism industry would like to change. After all, domestic weekend breaks of up to three nights increased by 7 per cent and those of more than four nights by 4 per cent last year, points out Nandy O'Sullivan, tourism press officer with Shannon Development. The domestic holiday market in the region is worth €120 million annually. "People need to realise we have state-of-the-art golf courses and outstanding amenities compared to elsewhere in Europe," she says.
Meanwhile, appreciating the relatively unspoiled beauty of rural Ireland also seems to be a part of the maturing of the Irish traveller, if Byrne is anything to go by. Having "been everywhere and done everything", she is now happy to be planting spuds and leeks on her land in Co Kerry.
"Maybe you have to see the world to appreciate what we have here at home," she says.
Hot, cold: travel trends
UP
Four-star hotels
Private tour guides
Weekends in Lithuania, Slovenia and Latvia
Activity and cultural holidays
Skiing in the French Alps
Caravanning and camping in France
Weekends in New York
DOWN
Self-catering apartments
Package tours
City breaks in London and Paris
Sun, sea and sand
Skiing in Andorra and Austria
Hot nights in Dubai
Caravanning and camping around Ireland
Sources: The Travel Broker, Clontarf; Directski.com and CSO, Household Quarterly Survey, 2004
The Irish abroad: sunny statistics
The number of Irish travelling to their own holiday homes in Europe has trebled since 2000.
Fifty per cent more international holidays were taken by the Irish in 2004 than in 2000. Overseas visits to friends and relatives rose by 50 per cent.
The largest growing group of Irish travellers are children up to 14 years old.
Twice as many travellers book on the internet as use travel agents.
Ten per cent of the international holidays taken by travellers from Dublin and the south west were to the US.
Holiday travel to Italy and Portugal has doubled since 2000.
Source: CSO Household Quarterly
Survey, 2004