Fáilte Ireland reports disappointing summer season for tourism sector

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2024/09/11/failte-ireland-reports-disappointing-summer-season-for-tourism-sector/

Posted by Available-Lemon9075

38 Comments

  1. I’m shocked! You mean people don’t want rip off pints and food and city full of cars and horse shit and just other hotels to visit! Well colour me surprised.

  2. OldVillageNuaGuitar on

    The headline is quite negative but the details in the article make it sound like the sector is more or less steady, which doesn’t really jibe with the claims that there’s a big problem that needs big interventions.

  3. Odd_Specialist_8687 on

    This is greed killing the goose that laid the golden egg. By ripping people off and offering very little in the way of value for money people will just stop coming.

  4. RemnantOfSpotOn on

    You are telling me that 7.5 – 10 eur pints, getting robbed or beaten to pulp is off putting to some?

  5. Looked at booking a family room in dingle skelligs for next year.. I was quoted 2200 for 4 DAYS. We went to Spain for way less for a week this year and dined out every night. I’d love to stay in Ireland for family time but every single place takes the piss

  6. 2_Pints_Of_Rasa on

    Well yeah, hospitality is pricing itself out of existence. A lot of these money gouging restaurants were only viable with a sweetheart VAT deal that was always temporary. I’ve no sympathy for hospitality owners, work in a pub as a student for one night and tell me that you do. Selling single pints that are 80% your hourly wage.

    Irish people, especially young people drink less, that means we need less pubs than previously. Bit of a side track on this but anecdotally as a student, the MUP has been the greatest single thing in increasing cannabis consumption ever. People just prefer value and just want a vice that allows them to escape their life. If alcohol is too expensive in pubs and shops, they swap over to weed which is basically the same in terms of harm but also provides that vice and avoids the hangover + save their livers.

  7. The report seems solely concerned about factors outside the hospitality industry’s control like the weather, economic uncertainty and rising taxes in the UK etc and makes little to no mention of how price gouging & terrible value may be playing a part. The industry is going through tough times no doubt but they need to start looking at themselves too and stop blaming everyone else.

  8. Inexorable_Fenian on

    Greed.

    Ireland could have continued to have a good thing with regards to tourism. But hoteliers and publicans/restaurant owners in tourist areas continually upped prices with no improvement to the quality of goods or service delivered.

    Even as a domestic tourist – places I once went to for a few nights have near doubled in price, and if anything have gotten worse in terms of what you get.

    Wake up call, hopefully.

  9. bygonesbebygones2021 on

    You would think a newspaper like the Irish times would have software to proofread articles before release?

    “It’s do to with the economic outlook really,” said Caeman Wall,

  10. Who’d have thought making Ireland too expensive to live or holiday in, while scrubbing its main city of all its character, would bite Tourism in the àss?

  11. I was down in Kerry during the summer. I know Airbnb can be controversial, but people hosting their spare bedrooms was way cheaper than staying in a hotel.

  12. I honestly think if we focused on trying to make Irish towns and villages better places to live we’d do better in terms of tourism.
    Places like Achill every second house on the island is unoccupied or used for accommodation a few weeks a year. Locals can’t find a place to rent.
    Everything costs a fortune, you need a car to get anywhere.
    Towns like Westport and castlebar fully dependent on cars.
    Train service is shite and then trains take you outside of these towns.
    The Greenway in mayo was originally lovely but they cut down a load of the trees and hedges so now you’re basically on the road.
    Nature is destroyed everywhere so hiking or camping loses so much appeal.
    AirBnb (among other things) wrecked the hotel and b&b industry which hurts the local area but also the atmosphere, the centralisation of people in towns and villages not car loads of travellers staying in random rented houses in linear development.
    I honestly think planning changes and a push to make our towns and villages more accessible, car free and lived in would go a long way to making them more livable. would make people live there all year round, would support pubs and restaurants and culture in a way that would make it more rewarding to visit and stay in. Not stop for an hour on a bus tour.

  13. OutrageousFootball10 on

    No doubt, like most business companies do, they will double down and raise prices again to try and catch up.

  14. This hints like an article sponsored by the publican and hoteliers to make a case for more tax cuts (blaming everyone else but not their own sheer greed and incompetence). Here comes socialism for business but rugged capitalism with 10 euro pints and 400 euro a night hotels for the rest of us. The FFG way ! This country is beyond fucked if you are middle class.

  15. €7 for a pint, €30 for a dinner and €400 for a hotel. No wonder people aren’t interested. Way cheaper to go abroad or visit another country instead of Ireland. Pure greed.

  16. PhilosopherSea1850 on

    In University, I used to get deals off booking for hotels in Dublin late at night for myself and the girlfriend and we’d get away with €70 stays.

    Tried to do it recently, the week or two before Coldplay I think and the average hotel price for that night was €240 at like 10.30PM.

    Fuck em. Let them fail. There’s absolutely no incentive in this country to do a good deal.

  17. Ya I’m a tour leader and it’s been a very poor season. 1st week of September was the busiest I’d seen the island all season long.

    Like most tour leaders you try and make your years pay in the 6 months season but this year I’m going to be down about €10,000, I do this job as I’m epileptic and need a break from work or I have seizures. Hoing to have to find a job to stay fed and warm and give myself seizures or stay hungry and cold probably causing stress leading to seizures. Well fuck.

  18. Usual expected comments chalking it down to greed, as if greed didn’t exist in prior years. 

    The tourism industry warned this will be the downside of filling every hotel room the country with Ukrainian refugees and international protection applicants. 

  19. Acceptable_City_9952 on

    It’s another symptom of the housing crisis as a lot of those in homelessness are disgracefully placed into hotels as emergency accommodation. I’m sure the 13bn received in tax from Apple would help that situation a lot however I’m not hopeful that Irish society is going to see much of that money.

  20. Because almost every news story out of this country has been negative over the past 12 months. Prices are sky-high and continue to rise, our capital is seen internationally as a joke, and there are constant news stories about tourists being attacked. Greed, incompetence, poor policing and a refusal to aggressively invest in the necessary infrastructure are what’s killing this country, a fall in tourism is only a symptom of a much larger issue.

  21. No-Teaching8695 on

    You all think hoteliers are to blame,

    But its FFG who use Hotels at an endless scale for housing its citizens through HAP who cant get a house/appartment or for refugees as Emergency accommodation

    Gov are paying out crazy money to hotels for rooms to use as homes

  22. Well i suppose if Dublin City Council stoped asking restaurants and cafes to pay for street furniture and signs outside on the path they might have a hope of surviving but with high rates and rents and wages it’s just an impossible business to be in .