Kilkenny was the worst hit county during the Covid pandemic when it came to domestic tourism, a new study has found.
The study, which was published by Fáilte Ireland, showed that Kilkenny recorded a 76 per cent drop in trips by Irish holidaymakers between 2019 and last year.
The figures are based on a combination of the household travel survey by the Central Statistics Office and estimates on spending by Fáilte Ireland.
In 2019, before the Covid pandemic led to a shutdown of the tourism and hospitality industry among others, 387,000 native tourists visited Kilkenny as part of a holiday. In 2021, however, that figure fell to just 93,000.
Despite then being the 11th most popular spot for a break in Ireland, it fell to 20th position last year, just ahead of Laois and Offaly. As well as this, spending by Irish tourists to Kilkenny dropped by 67 per cent to €16 million last year, a significant drop from €48 million in 2019.
Kilkenny wasn't the only county hit, as Tipperary, Cavan/Leitrim, Louth/Monaghan and Meath all suffered around a 60 per cent drop in trips and expenditure by domestic tourists since the outbreak of the pandemic.
Overall, the number of domestic holiday trips in 2021 was down 51 per cent to almost 5.7 million, while associated spending slipped down 40 per cent to around €1.3bn.
Domestic holiday trips to Dublin also declined, slipping 56 per cent last year to 783,000 compared to almost 1.8 million trips in 2019. These visitors also spent €157 million in the city, down 47 per cent.
Despite having the highest number of domestic holidaymakers in both 2019 and 2021, it was only third highest for tourism revenue from domestic visitors after Cork and Kerry. This is due to people taking shorter breaks in Dublin than other popular tourist regions.
Cork has boomed in popularity when it comes to domestic tourism in recent years, overtaking Kerry as the most prosperous region and with an estimated revenue of €167 million. Income from Irish visitors taking a break in the Kingdom fell by 46pc to €162m.
One spot, however, experienced a boom of its own in the last year, as Donegal reported an increase in tourism revenue from Irish holidaymakers.
The figures show spending was up 6 per cent to €103m, despite the fact that the overall number of people taking a domestic break in Donegal was down 35 per cent to 290,000. This was largely down to holidaymakers spending on average two extra days in the region for their holidays compared to 2019.
In 2021, visitors were spending on average five days in Donegal compared to 3.1 days before the pandemic. Average length of stays also increased by over one day in both Clare and Wicklow last year.
Meath was the only county during 2021where the average stay for a domestic break was shorter than in 2019.
On average, holidaymakers to Meath spent only 1.5 days on a break in 2021 compared to 1.8 days before the pandemic.
