The decline of Ireland's B&B sector is a blow to our vibrant tourism offering

With an acute shortage of accommodation now existing across all sectors of our hospitality industry, the time has come to recognise the importance and value of well-located B&Bs for the development of a vibrant tourism industry, writes John G O'Dwyer

B&Bs have fallen victim to stricter drink-driving laws, new budget price hotels, the trend towards the urbanisation of spending within tourism, and the more recent preference among Irish people for hotel stays. File picture

Once the powerhouse of our hospitality industry, B&Bs provided Irish people with affordable staycations in straitened times, when hotel stays were ruinously expensive. They also allowed overseas visitors the benefit of seamless entry to an Irish family home. 

Now, an endangered species, the welcoming shamrock outside an Irish homestead is fast going the way of telephone boxes, and transistor radios.