Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport his views on whether accurate data is essential to the planning and growth of the tourist industry on the island of Ireland, and that while hotels on the island experienced significant growth in room occupancy for 2012, it is still not possible to break out overseas bookings from domestic business; his plans to engage with his counterpart in Northern Ireland to address this issue; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15303/13]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

This Question relates to tourism statistics.

Reliable tourism statistics are essential for measuring performance and informing both agency operations and overarching Government policies and actions.

Clearly, however, neither I nor Fáilte Ireland nor any other agency of this State has direct responsibility for the overall development of the tourism industry for the island of Ireland as a whole.  Northern Ireland remains another jurisdiction.  Although there is cross-border cooperation on tourism within the framework of the North/South Ministerial Council, this focuses primarily on the role of Tourism Ireland as a North/South body marketing the island of Ireland overseas as a tourism destination, with other matters being discussed where appropriate and agreed.  Where appropriate and beneficial to both jurisdictions, matters relating to tourism statistics are discussed and cooperation takes place in the framework of the North/South Ministerial Council - and indeed through other arrangements under the aegis of the statutory statistics agencies of both jurisdictions.

The collection of statistics for this State, including tourism statistics, is primarily a matter for the Central Statistics Office (CSO), Ireland’s independent national statistical agency.  In addition to the official CSO statistics, the tourism agencies also conduct their own analyses of tourism performance and further research to provide supplementary insights.

With specific regard to statistics on hotels, the Deputy appears to be misinformed.  It is possible to distinguish domestic from overseas business in data published by both the CSO and Fáilte Ireland.  The CSO provides information on the type of accommodation (including hotels) used by travellers - publishing overseas data in its Tourism and Travel release and domestic data in the Household Travel Survey.  Fáilte Ireland publishes data on hotel guest nights broken down by market area – both domestic and overseas – in its annual Hotel Survey publication.

My officials and I have regular and constructive engagement with the CSO and with the tourism agencies regarding data on tourism performance relating to this State.