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The number of Britons taking foreign holidays plunged last year as the 40-year trend towards regular overseas breaks fell at the fastest rate on record.

The recession prompted families to holiday at home and also saw a drop in business travel.

UK residents made 58.6m visits overseas in 2009 which was15% fewer than in 2008, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) said in its 2009 survey of travel trends.

The figures come from the ongoing international passenger survey, involving interviews with 300,000 travellers to and from Britain.

Last year's steep decline, which represented 10.4m overseas visits, effectively reverses a four-decade trend of increasing foreign travel triggered by the rise of "cheap and cheerful" package holiday in the 1970s and the more recent lure of exotic, far-flung destinations. Trips to the UK by overseas visitors also took a dip in 2009.

The ONS said that the falls followed a long period of growth in visits to and from the UK. Visits abroad had in fact grown at an average of 4% per year for 25 years. Visits to the UK grew at an annual rate of 3.2%

Last year very few overseas countries saw an increase in visits by UK residents. Egypt, Jamaica and Lithuania were exceptions to the rule, continuing an overall trend of rises in numbers of British tourists to these countries in recent years.

There is no doubt that the ever-increasing problems of the Euro have had a negative impact on people travelling to Europe. The recession has contributed to a very difficult couple of years with regard to tourism.

The North American market showed some signs of improvement towards the end of last year, but the volcano ash cloud in April knocked this back again.

Overall the total amount spent by foreign tourists was a staggering £16.6bn last year. A Record 3.8m visitors came to Britain from France thus meaning one in eight of the 30m overseas visitors to the UK were French.