In spite of the recession, large numbers of Dutch people went on holiday last year. While the number of long holidays people took remained fairly stable, the number of domestic long holidays decreased and more long holidays were spent abroad, according to new data from Statistics Netherlands (CBS).

The number of long holidays (four consecutive nights or longer) spent here in the Netherlands has fallen in recent years from 8,7 million in 2009 to 8,3 million in 2011. CBS attributes this decrease at least in part to bad weather conditions in the summer of 2011. The number of long holidays spent abroad grew from 14,6 to 14,9 million over the same period.

The average length of stay is nearly 10 days for a long domestic holiday and nearly 12 days for a long foreign holiday. As a result of the reduced number domestic holidays, the number of overnight stays during long domestic holidays dropped from nearly 74 million in 2009 to 71 million in 2011. The number of overnight stays abroad remained fairly stable at approximately 176 million in recent years.

Residents of the Netherlands spent 15,2 billion euros on long and short domestic and foreign holidays in 2011. They spent 2,8 billion euros in the Netherlands and 12,4 billion euros abroad. Holiday expenditures during the summer period increased from 9,2 billion euros in 2009 to 9,6 billion euros in 2011. Tourist spending during the winter period declined from 5,9 to 5,5 billion euros.