Summer travel in 2025: what visitor choices mean for your business
Use consumer data on trips, cost, planning, and motivations.
Overview
Irish consumers continue to value trips and holidays, taking more of them both domestically and abroad. For domestic visitors taking overnight trips in Ireland, a keen eye is being kept on trip costs to ensure maximum value for money for their holiday.
Key Takeaways
1. Overnight trips and spend rose in the first half of 2025
Republic of Ireland residents took +5% more overnight trips in the first half of 2025 and spent +4% more than in 2024.
2. Overnight trips abroad rose while domestic overnight trips fell
Domestic overnight trips fell by -4% in the first half of 2025, while overnight trips abroad grew by +14%.
Holiday trips abroad also shortened from 6.2 nights to 5.5 nights, showing tourists are controlling trip cost and length but also taking more frequent trips.
3. Cost affected domestic trip choices during Summer 2025
Reducing trip costs was a key priority for tourists, with accommodation, food, and in-destination costs a particular focus.
43% expected cheaper accommodation, 39% planned to do more free activities, and 35% expected to spend less on eating out. However, the increase of international flight prices by +5% year on year, and international packages +7%may influence more domestic travel.
4. Domestic day trips during summer accounted for 46% of consumers
This compares with 19% taking a domestic overnight trip and 17% taking an overnight trip abroad.
5. Motivations and planning windows varied
For motivations to take a trip, families were most likely to seek bonding time, at 53%. Younger adults under 45 were most likely to seek adventure, at 36%, and 32% of adults aged 45 and over were most likely to seek exploration.
Search behaviour varies throughout the year. By July, accommodation searches were -12% lower year on year. ‘Things-to-do’ searches were -19% lower, although day-trip searches grew by +2.5% year on year.
What does this mean for your business?
Domestic tourists are sensitive to rising costs and are looking to extract value for money from their overnight trip.
- Show menu prices, family options, and local produce.
- Link food offers to nearby events, attractions, or day-trip plans.
- State what is included, such as set menus, children’s options, or early dining times.
Practical action: Review your menus, social content, and web listings before seasonal campaigns.
- Show what is included in the stay, not just the room price.
- Highlight breakfast, flexible booking, family facilities, access, and nearby things to do.
- Keep availability and cancellation details up to date.
Practical action: Check your booking journey from search to confirmation.
- Create offers for short visits, events, and weather-friendly days.
- Use separate messages for families, younger adults, and adults aged 45 and over.
- Make booking details, access, transport, and timing easy to find.
Practical action: Make booking details, access, transport, timing, and visitor needs easy to find.
- Lead with price, flexibility, and reasons to travel now.
- Show what visitors can do in one day, one night, or a weekend.
- Keep seasonal offers easy to understand and book.
Practical action: Review seasonal messages against price, flexibility, booking ease, and trip length.
About this report
Our domestic seasonal reports are designed to provide an overview of visitor behaviour during peak and off-peak times of the year. Surveys are conducted via an online panel. 1,300 residents in Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland are surveyed on a monthly basis.
Related next steps
Use the findings to review your visitor information, product offerings, and summer plans. Check current Fáilte Ireland courses on learniFi to support these updates.
Download the full Consumer Update Summer Report
Read the entire report for full insights, examples, and source context.
How we uncover these insights
Based on Fáilte Ireland’s monthly Domestic Tracker of 1,300 Island of Ireland consumers, the Central Statistics Office Household Travel Survey of 4,600 Republic of Ireland households, and secondary sources including Foresight Factory, the European Travel Commission, Trading Economics and Eurostat.