New figures from the Central Statistics Office show that Irish residents spent a total of 36.7 million nights on domestic trips in 2024, an 8.2% increase compared with the previous year.
Today's figures show that the number of nights spent on domestic overnight trips was 7.6% higher in the fourth quarter of 2024 compared to the same time in 2023.
The CSO said that visits to friends or relatives accounted for the largest share of total domestic nights at 49%, followed by holiday trips (34%), while business travel represented just 5% of all overnight stays.
The most popular region visited by Irish residents on overnight trips in the final three months of last year was the Southern region (Clare, Tipperary, Limerick, Waterford, Kilkenny, Carlow, Wexford, Cork, and Kerry), accounting for 1.8 million trips.
The Northern and Western region (Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Cavan, Monaghan, Galway, Mayo, and Roscommon) had the smallest number of domestic overnight trips (0.8 million trips), the CSO noted.
Meanwhile, Irish residents took 13.7 million outbound overnight trips, totalling 81.2 million bed nights, last year.
Irish residents spent 7.8 million nights on domestic trips in the fourth quarter of last year, a 7.6% increase from the same three month period in 2023.
The CSO said that most of these nights spent on outbound trips were for holiday purposes (51%), or visits to friends or relatives (36%). Business travel accounted for 6% of all outbound nights.
