Sharp drop in number of staycations last summer

The number of Irish residents holidaying at home in July, August and September of last year was down by a third on the same period of 2020 as more people opted to travel abroad instead, data from the Central Statistics Office shows.

Irish residents took 2.8 million domestic trips in the third quarter of 2021, amounting to just over 10 million bed nights, of which a fraction over a quarter were spent in hotel accommodation.

In 2020, amid heavy restrictions on foreign travel, 4.19 million trips were taken. The figure for last year was down almost 28 per cent on the 3.9 million domestic holidays taken before Covid struck in 2019.

Total expenditure on domestic trips in the 2021 third quarter amounted to €776 million. Those on holidays accounted for €680 million of that, while those visiting friends or relatives spent €67 million.

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Expenditure on domestic holidays fell by 19.3 per cent when compared with the same period of 2020, while spending on trips to visit friends or relatives was down by 45.3 per cent.

Hotel accommodation was used for 971,000 domestic trips, while Irish residents stayed with friends or relatives on 836,000 trips.

The corresponding figures for 2020 show there were 1,362,000 domestic trips where hotel accommodation was availed of, and 1.25 million trips where people stayed with friends or relatives. Those figures were down 28.7 per cent and 33.1 per cent respectively last year.

Foreign travel

The figures also show that more people opted to travel abroad. There were 585,000 outbound overnight trips undertaken by Irish residents in the quarter.

Those trips accounted for almost 4.6 million bed nights and spending of almost €557 million. The number of outbound trips was up 10.3 per cent when compared with 2020, but remained almost 80 per cent lower than the same period in 2019.

CSO statistician Brendan Curtin said: “The figures provide information on the impact of Covid-19 on domestic and international travel in the months of July, August and September 2021.

“Domestic trips were down by 1.1 million (-28 per cent) in the third quarter compared with the same period two years ago. When compared to the third quarter of 2019, Irish residents took 11 per cent fewer domestic holiday trips, and business trips were down by 68 per cent.

“There were 585,000 outbound overnight trips undertaken by Irish residents. When compared to the same period in 2019, this represents a fall of 2.3 million outbound trips (-80 per cent).

“Foreign holidays were down by 1.7 million, and there were 300,000 fewer trips to visit friends and relatives.”