Ukrainian refugees may impact tourism but 'positives outweigh negatives'

Housing refugees in hotels will hit tourism but any “negatives” will be balanced out by “positives”, public representatives in one of Ireland’s top tourist destinations have said.

Housing refugees in hotels will hit tourism but any “negatives” will be balanced out by “positives”, public representatives in one of Ireland’s top tourist destinations have said.

Their comments come as the Government says it has allocated 11,500 beds as of this week in hotels, guesthouses and B&Bs to the 16,400 Ukrainian refugees looking for accommodation.

Earlier this month, Fáilte Ireland CEO Paul Kelly told the Oireachtas that relying on hotel accommodation to house refugees would impact on the industry.

He warned the Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media debate on April 6: "If core tourism accommodation stock, such as hotel bedrooms, is taken out of the system, there will be significant knock-on impacts elsewhere.

"For every euro a visitor spends on accommodation, he or she will spend €2.50 in other parts of the economy, whether going to restaurants, pubs or visitor attractions, using transport and so on.

"If a significant volume of tourism accommodation stock comes out of the market over the summer, that will limit our ability to recover and make things difficult for pubs, restaurants, activity providers and visitor attractions that rely on those visitors. If potential visitors cannot get a bed, they will not come."

Tralee-based auctioneer and county councillor Jim Finucane said he did not think it will impact tourism negatively. 

"I think that there will be positives because a lot of Ukrainian refugees will apply for seasonal positions in the tourism and hospitality sector. So technically, the influx of refugees into Tralee is more of a plus than anything else.”

Niall Kelleher, Killarney-based county councillor and president at Killarney Chamber, says there are going to be “issues”.

However, he believes they are more likely to affect other parts of the country than Killarney, which has more than 2,500 hotel beds in 39 hotels.

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“It takes a lot to fill Killarney, and not all of the events that used to be on in the town are on this summer. Yes, rooms are going to be taken up, and there are going to be issues. But I believe it's going to be a good tourism season. In many places around the country, I think there might be a difficulty, but in Killarney, I'm not too sure," he said.

Galway councillor John Connolly said he doesn’t believe tourism in the county will be impacted as most of the city’s hotels are already heavily booked. 

"I wouldn’t be overly concerned about the impact refugees have on the tourism season, to be honest. There are very greater needs at stake here.”