Official figures show that the amount of money spent by Irish people on foreign travel dropped by almost 20% last year.
The Central Statistics Office said Irish people made just under 7.3 million trips abroad last year, down 9.3% from 2008. The amount of money spent on these trips was down 19.5% to just under €5.8 billion.
The CSO said the number of trips within Ireland was almost unchanged from 2008 at 8.3 million, but within this, holiday trips dropped 8.2% to just over four million. Domestic travellers spent just under €1.4 billion on trips, down 10%. This figure included an 18% drop in spending on holidays in Ireland to €843m.
For the final three months of 2009, the number of international trips taken by Irish people fell 10% from Q4 2008, with holidays falling by 22%. There was an annual fall of more than 15% on spending, with spending on business trips down 15% and holiday spending down 25%.
