Only one in six plan holiday abroad this year

THE number of Irish residents expecting to travel internationally this year has fallen dramatically since the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

Just one six (15.7%) now say they intend to travel abroad this year, but the figure has fallen sharply since Ireland entered its third lockdown in December.

A new study by the Central Statistics Office has also shown that people are broadly positive about taking the Covid19 vaccine, with 87% saying they would take it next week if available.

In a February survey, fewer than one in six people, 15.7%, said they anticipated their next international flight would be sometime in 2021. That is compared to slightly more than half, 50.6%, who thought they would travel internationally this year when asked the same question last November.

Almost three quarters of those asked – 73.3% – said they would take a holiday overseas in a typical year prior to the onset of Covid-19.

People are more likely now to take a holiday of at least a week in Ireland than they were prior to the pandemic. Almost two-fifths of respondents, or 39.4%, said they intend to take at least a week-long holiday in the Republic of Ireland in 2021. That is compared to fewer than a third, 30.9%, who said they would opt for a staycation before Covid arrived on these shores. On attitudes towards Covid

87% of those who have not yet received a jab said they would do so next week if it was available. On vaccine concerns, 46.3% said they were ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ concerned by the long wait for a jab. Some 21.3% said they were worried about the length of time that they will be protected against Covid-19 by the vaccine. And 20.7% said they were concerned about the effectiveness of the vaccine against different strains of the virus. Only 5.4% of this cohort said they do not want to get the vaccine.