Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)

I will give Members an idea of what we are up against. In that regard, I am grateful to the Oireachtas Library and Research Service for providing information I requested on what other countries were doing, which will give some indication of the opposition we face and the competitive nature of the tourism business.

Regarding taxation measures and other financial incentives in countries from which we hope to gain visitors, France, for example, has reduced the rate of VAT to 5.5% on restaurant meal items, matching its long-standing hotel VAT rate implemented in July last year. Scotland is providing funding to support the owners of castles, tower homes and other relevant historic buildings to refurbish their premises. The Government in Thailand is promoting domestic tourism and offering rock-bottom discounts to Thai residents. Canadians are being encouraged to spend their travel dollars at home through a national advertising programme to boost domestic tourism. In Spain, India has been identified as one of the fastest growing outbound tourism markets and the Spanish Government is working to promote Spain and increase tourist numbers from India. The Scottish Government has also decided that it, too, will begin to target that market. I put these forward in the context of the promotional element involved. The VAT rate being suggested is of particular importance.

I suggest the departure tax, on which the tourism renewal group set up last year by the Minister, Deputy Martin Cullen, has an opinion, as does the industry, should be revisited and perhaps reduced for journeys to United Kingdom airports, considering the main focus of the marketing campaign will be on the UK market in the coming year.

Car rental numbers are down. I believe this will create a difficulty for the tourism industry later this year. I, therefore, suggest some initiative is required to boost availability in the car rental industry.

I support the views expressed by some of my colleagues about local authority charges, as they are impacting on the hotel sector. I strongly suggest there should be a revaluation of hotel property. If we could do this through NAMA and do it quickly, I see no reason there should not be an incentive, with Government support, to have a revaluation to bring it to more realistic levels and help to reduce costs.

There is so much more about which one can talk in the tourism sector but I applaud Tourism Ireland and Fáilte Ireland which are spending €4 million to boost the domestic market. I wish them success. This will be a good year for tourism. Of those involved in the tourism industry who were asked how they saw the outturn in tourism this year, 63% expressed a positive, up-beat, confident view that there would be a turnaround and that this would be a better year for tourism. I believe that will be the case because it is our most important indigenous industry, as the construction and agriculture industries are in recession.