Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 21 October 2020

Joint Committee on Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht

Tourism Sector: Discussion

Ms Ruth Andrews:

The stay-and-spend scheme, which, in effect, is unfortunately redundant now, given the level 5 restrictions that have come into place, was a positive move by the Government to assist the industry, particularly in the domestic arena. It will be important that we revisit the scheme when the time is right and that we use it to support the industry when we get back to reopening across the country and in all the key tourism regions.

As for the Senator's area, we were delighted to have Martin Dalby from Center Parcs as part of the TRT. He played an integral part and really understands how important tourism is to us. Particularly in the immediate survival phase and as we look to stabilisation, domestic tourism will be hugely important to us. There is a real opportunity there because a great deal of money is spent by Irish people travelling overseas every year. Our opportunity is, not just in the short term but also in the longer term, to get people to go out, encourage them to take more domestic holidays and get some of that spend back into our own economy and keep it there in order that people can see what terrific value and wonderful hospitality are here on their own doorsteps.

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