Irish people are making fewer trips abroad, according to new figures from the Central Statistics Office today. The CSO says that the number of trips abroad fell by 13.4% to 474,000 in February 2009 compared to the same time last year.
So far this year, the number of trips made by Irish people abroad are down almost 11% to 976,100, which the CSO says is a complete reversal of the growth rate seen last year.
The CSO figures also reveal that visitors to Ireland in February were down 5.5% to 445,200 from the same month in 2008. Visits by UK residents fell by 5.8% to 244,800 and were the main reason for the overall decline in visitors to Ireland.
Trips made here by US visitors were down by almost a fifth to 37,500, however the number of European visitors rose by 1% to 149,100.
