New figures from the Central Statistics Office today show the continued strong recovery in travel by Irish residents in 2022 following the disruption caused by Covid-19 restrictions.
The CSO said the number of domestic overnight trips taken in the fourth quarter of 2022 was 16% higher than in the same time in pre-pandemic 2019.
Meanwhile, the total number of outbound overnight trips increased by 14% when compared with the same quarter in 2019.
Half of all domestic overnight trips in 2022 were for holiday purposes while over one-third were undertaken to visit friends or relatives.
Today's figures show that expenditure also increased in the last quarter of 2022, rising by 26% for domestic overnight trips and 24% for outbound overnight trips when compared with the same time in 2019.
The CSO said that Irish residents took 13.3 million domestic overnight trips and 8.8 million outbound overnight trips in 2022.
This compares with 11.6 million domestic overnight trips and 9.4 million outbound overnight trips in 2019.
Meanwhile, Irish residents took 16.2 million domestic same-day visits and 1.3 million outbound same-day visits last year.
The CSO said that expenditure reached €856m on domestic same-day visits in 2022 which was more than double the comparable 2021 figure of €411m.
People spent €124m on outbound same-day visits which was also up significantly on the 2021 spend of €61m, the CSO added.
