Luxembourg is one of a handful of European countries bucking the trend when it comes to business travel.

While on average European Union members saw an 11 percent decline in business travel from 2008 to 2011, Luxembourg was one of seven countries to record a rise.

In 2011, it recorded 300,000 business trips abroad, a 3 percent growth compared with 2008. Other countries where business trips grew were Croatia, Sweden, Finland, Slovenia, Romania and Estonia, with the latter reporting a massive 50 percent growth.

Tourist travel accounted for the lion's share of the 1.6 million trips made by people living in Luxembourg last year. Holiday travel grew by 12 percent from 2008 to 2010 and nearly all trips were made abroad, an unsurprising phenomenon given Luxembourg's diminutive size.

The biggest rise in tourist travel was noted by Estonia, which saw an 80 percent rise.

The EU 27 countries recorded 1.2 billion trips last year. In terms of tourism trips, there was little variation compared with figures reported in 2008.

Read the full Eurostat report in French