The number of staycations increased by 13.4% last year as the record beating summer weather encouraged people to stay and holiday in Ireland.
New figures from the Central Statistics Office show that Irish residents took more than 10.9 million domestic trips last year, an increase of 13.4% compared to the number of trips made in 2017.
The CSO noted that each trip had an average duration of 2.6 nights, resulting in 28.4 million bed nights for the year.
Today's figures show that total expenditure on domestic trips last year amounted to €2.006 billion, with under €1.233 billion of this accounted for by those on holidays.
Those visiting friends or relatives spent €353m last year.
Meanwhile, over 8.6 million foreign trips were undertaken by Irish residents in 2018, an increase of 5.8% on 2017.
A total of 60.6 million bed nights were availed of by Irish residents travelling abroad last year, with 73% of these bed nights within the European Union.
The CSO figures show that average length of stay on outbound trips was seven nights, varying from six nights within the European Union, 11.6 nights in North America and 33.3 nights in Australia, New Zealand and Oceania.
They also reveal that Irish residents spent €7.435 billion on outbound trips last year.
Of this, €4.893 billion was spent on holidays, €1.055 billion on business trips and €963.6m on visiting friends or relatives.
