Irish visits abroad down by 13%

IRISH holidaymakers are cutting back on overseas visits as the recession hits with the number of trips abroad down by 13% since the start of the year.

The internal market is also suffering with the number of foreign visitors in the first three months of 2009 down by 9% compared with last year.

It is estimated that Irish holidaymakers spent€1.3 billion on foreign travel so far this year, while visitors to Ireland contributed just €694m to the local economy. New figures from the Central Statistics Office show Irish people made 1.54 million overseas trips between January and March this year — a decrease of 222,000 trips on the same period in 2008.