The Irish Examiner View: Holiday at home to try to save tourism jobs

Something north of 11m tourists visited Ireland last year. These visitors generating almost €6bn for our economy, a figure increased significantly by domestic tourism. If the money spent by Irish people in bars and restaurants at home holiday resorts is added to the total then the huge importance of tourism, international and domestic, to our economy and employment can hardly be overstated. That business has more or less fallen off a cliff. Job losses, holiday and flight cancellations, canceled wedding celebrations too, are the order of the day. No industry could withstand that huge change.

A report from the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) shows that our tourism sector is not in any way different to their international peers. C19 has  placed the whole world on lockdown, 100% of global destination have travel restrictions in place while 72% have completely closed their borders to international tourism.