International travel has quickly recovered from the global lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic, with foreign tourism to Ireland this year expected to reach 75% of its 2019 figures, a year in which more than 11 million were recorded. visits abroad on the island and a turnover of almost 6,000 million euros.
Despite the challenges, research in ten key markets shows that the desire to travel remains strong and there is optimism for the year ahead, with most potential tourists still in the planning stages.
Tourism Ireland Chief Executive Niall Gibbons said there has been a strong recovery in the second half of the year and it is expected to reach at least 75% of the 2019 figures.
Speaking to RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, he said; “Despite all the headwinds that have been well documented already, we feel that we’re looking at a strong recovery again in 2023.”
Gibbons said that Ireland is not alone in facing difficulties in terms of the economy, currency fluctuations and war in Ukraine, but these problems affect every country in the world.
He said that in the UK market in particular, Ireland is a problem-free country.
“It’s next door, it’s easy to get to,” he said, reports RTE.
“There’ll be 200,000 seats on sale every week next summer with Ryanair, Aer Lingus and other carriers. We will have 40,000 spaces on our car ferries on the channel ferries alone,” he added, reported RTE.
Gibbons said the priority is to create business in the regions and off-peak for British tourists.
He said the “bottom line” is that they haven’t received any applications for two years, and this is a situation they “can’t tolerate.”
“For us it’s about trying to regrow demand in real terms by 2025 to 2019 levels. There are a lot of issues that need to be resolved. Competitiveness is very, very important. We’ve entered these storms before. For now, we need to go out and regain and build our market share. Competitiveness will be very key to that and there are issues that are probably beyond Tourism Ireland’s pay grade on the supply side, but certainly on the demand side we’re seeing a good degree of optimism and certainly a good base to build on from 2022 as we look to the future,” he said, reported RTE.
In a statement this morning, Tourism Ireland said this week that it is staging its biggest ever presence at London’s World Travel Market in preparation for 2023.
It said the tourism industry now faces other challenges, including labor shortages and rising costs of doing business.
“The research, carried out in ten important tourism markets, shows that the desire to travel is stronger than ever. It also shows that seven out of ten people who want to travel in 2023 are still in the planning stages, meaning there is still a good opportunity to influence their choice of destination.”
Tourism Minister Catherine Martin said the last few years have been “extremely challenging” for the industry and praised Tourism Ireland, Fáilte Ireland and Tourism Northern Ireland for their efforts.
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