Domestic travel down by 2% last year

Irish people took 1,678,000 domestic trips with at least one overnight stay in the final three months of 2005, a 2 per cent drop on the same period for 2004.

The Household Travel Survey, released today by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), revealed that the total number of bednights spent on domestic trips in the same period also fell by 2 per cent when compared with 2004.

There were 36 per cent fewer bednights spent in Guest House/B&B's and 6 per cent fewer in Hotels/Conference Centres.

However, nights spent in people's private holiday homes grew by 1 per cent.

The estimated expenditure spent on domestic trips also grew by 26 per cent from €206m in 2004 to €259.8m.

Irish people also made 11 per cent more international trips with at least one overnight in 2005 with trips to Europe and the US showing strong increases.

Overall estimated expenditure on international trips grew from €838.2m in the final three months of 2004 to €1,172m for the same period last year, an increase of 40 per cent.

Expenditure on international holiday trips also increased by 27 per cent on the same period.

Responding to today's figures, president of the Irish Hotels Federation Annette Devine said she was very encouraged by the figures and called them "a real vote of confidence by consumers in the home holiday market".

Ms Devine said that while the domestic market is "the lifeblood of regional tourism" she warned against an over-reliance on one market source.

"There is a real and urgent need for our industry, in parallel to building the home holiday market, to attract and increase the number of overseas visitor to the regions," Ms Devine added.