There was an increase of 22% in international trips taken from Ireland in 2002 over 2000, according to figures released by the Central Statistics Office this morning. The figure for 2002 was almost 4.6 million. The number of domestic trips grew by 17.8% over the same period.
According to the CSO's Household Travel Survey, there were over 2.8 million domestic holiday trips taken in 2002, representing almost 44% of the total number of domestic trips. Over 2.8 million international holiday trips were also taken in 2002, approximately 62% of total international trips.
In each of the three years to 2002, the southwest was the most popular domestic destination in Ireland, accounting for almost 22% of trips over the period.
In the first three months of this year, the west was the most popular domestic destination with 293,000 trips.
There were 3.8 million trips to EU countries in 2002, accounting for almost 83% of all international trips. North America was the second most visited destination in each of the three years to 2002 although the number of trips fell almost 23% between 2000 and 2002.
