Irish people spent almost €5 billion on holidays abroad last year as the numbers travelling overseas increased significantly, according to the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
Continuing recent trends, Irish people are spending more abroad than what international visitors are spending here.
The tourism and travel balance shows a difference of €501 million between the earnings of visits to Ireland and the expenditure of Irish visitors abroad.
The number of overseas visits by Irish residents increased by 13 per cent to 6,113,000 last year and expenditure by Irish visitors abroad amounted to €4.8 billion. This compares to 2001 when €3.2 billion was spent abroad.
While the number of overseas visits by Irish residents to continental Europe increased by 17 per cent, use of sea cross-channel routes decreased by 12 per cent.
Nearly 7 million overseas visitors came to Ireland last year, up 6 per cent on 2004. The overseas visitors earned the Irish tourism industry €4.3 billion. Research suggests most visits to Ireland are for leisure and recreational purposes, followed by visits to friends and relatives and business-related matters.
The number of nights spent by overseas vistors in rented houses and apartments here grew by over 10 per cent last year but guesthouses and B&Bs saw their visits fall by some 8 per cent.Hotels secured 10,615,000 bednights from overseas visitors.
The average length of stay of overseas visitor to Ireland last year was 7.6 nights, which compares with an average of 8.4 nights for Irish visits abroad.
Visits abroad by Irish people have increased from 4,216,000 in 2001 to 6,113,000 last year.
Fine Gael tourism spokesman Jimmy Deenihan TD expressed alarm at the figures, which he said highlighted "the major problems affecting Irish tourism".
The figures showed "the number of people coming here to holiday in 2005 virtually stagnating, while there was a massive increase of almost half a million in the number of Irish people holidaying abroad.
"The fact that over one million more Irish people now go abroad to holiday compared with 2001 suggests that the Government has failed to address the problem of increasing business costs and, as a result, Irish people are choosing foreign tourism products," he added.
"The net outflow from Ireland of over half a billion euro in the area of tourism and travel in 2005 illustrates just how high the financial implications are for the native tourism sector..."
Mr Deenihan said he will be raising the matter in the Dáil next week."
However Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism John O'Donoghue said in a statement that the CSO figures were "a very positive result" both in terms of the number of overseas visitors and tourism revenue.
"As global competition intensifies and consumer preferences evolve, these results represent a very robust performance by the sector and confirm just how dynamic and responsive the Irish tourism sector is."