Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 29 March 2023

Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport And Media

Challenges Facing Providers of Tourist Accommodation in Ireland: Discussion

Mr. Eoghan O'Mara Walsh:

I might defer to Ms Andrews, whose members focus on bringing in overseas business with the ITOA. There are so many aspects to what the Deputy talked about. Some are controllable and some are uncontrollable, but even the uncontrollable ones have unintended consequences for our sector. We talk about capacity shortages due to the humanitarian reasons, but that does not just push up price and it means there is a lack of availability full stop. As I mentioned earlier, there are tourism towns where there will not be tourism beds and they will miss out fully on the tourism activity.

I might loop in Ms Andrews, who can give the perspective from the overseas markets, because it is from there that many of her members bring business into the country.