Pandemic has cost tourism industry more than €12bn - ITIC

New restrictions in December alone costs sector €400m

Wed, 29 Dec, 2021 - 11:32

Alan Healy

The Covid-19 pandemic has cost the Irish tourism industry €12.2bn with the most recent restrictions resulting in a €400m reduction in income for December.

Figures released by industry body, the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation (ITIC) shows the bulk of the losses are as a result of the dramatic fall in overseas visitors since the pandemic began. In 2019, the number of overseas visitors was just below 10 million. This figure plummeted to just over two million for 2020 and 2021.

This loss of visitors has resulted in a cumulative loss of €8bn the ITIC said. The loss of fares to Irish travel carriers cost €3bn and the drop in domestic travel added a further €1.5bn loss.

Despite the Omicron variant representing a further challenge for the sector, the ITIC said it is confident that the industry will rebound and that there can be a baseline recovery in inbound tourism of approximately 60% of 2019 levels next year.

However, they said it is essential that additional testing requirements introduced for travellers in recent months will have to be dropped for the sector to recover.

“January is a key booking period for international markets,” Eoghan O’Mara Walsh, CEO of ITIC said. “It is vital that additional restrictions and testing requirements on international travel are lifted as soon as possible to give confidence to consumers to choose Ireland as a holiday destination”.

He said millions of potential international visitors will have received the booster vaccine by early 2022 and any additional testing requirements for arrivals should be dropped. “We must learn to live alongside the virus”, said O’Mara Walsh. “We spent a lot of time devising the Digital Covid Certificate across Europe and it has worked extremely well and should be trusted as a bulwark against the virus”.