Avvertendo che il turismo in Irlanda al “punto di ritorno”
https://www.rte.ie/news/2025/0813/1528150-itic-tourism/
di Bubbaz355
Avvertendo che il turismo in Irlanda al “punto di ritorno”
https://www.rte.ie/news/2025/0813/1528150-itic-tourism/
di Bubbaz355
31 commenti
What could the industry do itself?
Time to sell the rain to the Mediterranians. Seriously.
Cheaper to go to Spain/Portugal than to West Cork. 9% VAT isn’t going to change this.
It’s always going to be ups and downs. We had a huge blast of it there and now it will slow but others will come from other places. Europe is too hot now for many and locals will want new destinations.
I’m not doubting numbers will be down, the global economy is getting eaten alive by the very wealthy. But the click based media needs to pump out this negative pish a million times a day on every topic.
No one wants to pay 300€ per night to get wet and blown away? Shocking.
I wanted to get a hotel for one night for myself, my wife and our son in Dublin 3 weeks ago. The cheapest room we could find was €465. OK it was with only a couple of days to go but come on. Earlier this year we looked at holiday options and the price of a particularly well known “Family” hotel in the West of Ireland for a week was €1100 more than going to Bella Italia in Italy (including flights and accomodation) the same week. It was a no brainer and we had a fabulous week in Italy that made us think why would we ever bother with Ireland again.
I think the tourist industry is at a tipping point but it is entirely their own fault with price gouging. Zero sympathy for them and we must not drop the VAT rate for them because at they will probably just pocket it or at worse they will simply cut the prices for the wealthy who can afford to pay their insane prices.
Think the industry is fairly under already. My partner and I have a comfortable income. A few years ago would have done a few domestic trips a year. After moving back from Australia in the last year and a bit, we haven’t gone on one because of the sheer cost of hotels and quality for what you get, compared to elsewhere. I know its anecdotal, but it’s the case for many I know. Its a pity because there’s places I genuinely would like to visit, Ireland itself is great – but financially a quick weekend trip doesn’t feel worth it now. Obviously not the worst complaint to have, we’re fortunate enough if that’s what we’re cutting back on. Just an observation.
Because it’s too expensive.
Guinness Storehouse-26 euro.
Jameson tour-26 euro.
Viking Splash-35 euro.
Blarney Castle – 23 euro.
Book of Kells – 26 euro.
And many many more are charging this. It’s a pisstake
Ireland does quite well at the very high end, but we’re not great value for money in the middle market and I think the quality of the product has declined too – and that’s in part the industry and in part the cities and towns need a boot up the rear too – there’s a lot of underinvestment in public realm stuff.
I mean, if you take Cork City for example. The symbol of the city is Shandon – used in posters and photographs and everything else, but when when you visit the area, it’s really rundown and looks like nobody’s spent any money on it in decades. Even every view of the tower is festooned with endless overhead phone lines, cable tv lines and random ESB wires going every direction.
Same applies to many aspects of Dublin. I was in Stoneybatter during the week, supposedly Dublin’s trendy coffee culture vibe place and it is just strewn with torn recycling bags and go down the road a bit further and it’s really rundown in behind Smithfield etc.
Americans are facing into economic turbulence due to Trump and a significantly declining dollar, so their spending power is reducing – a Dollar is only buying 85 cents, and in reality less when you do it at commercial rates. They were nearly on parity a year ago.
Then you’ve got the fact that Dublin in particular lost its vibe a few years ago. Look at the reviews online and you’ll get a sense of it. It’s compared a lot to cities like Brussels and Glasgow, i.e. not somewhere you’d be in a huge rush to visit. It needs to seriously up its game and do something about the fact tha the city centre has declined. Cork’s only marginally better and also feels like it’s only slowly waking up from a long slumber. It got politely described as “tired looking” by a CNN journalist and the reaction was more ‘how dare they’ than … ‘yes, the city is slowly crumbling into the Lee’. I can’t speak for other cities, but those two need to get their heads out of their arses and actually do something about how they look. They are not the centre of the world and can be quite underwhelming, particularly if you end up in a budget hotel in some ‘up and coming’ spot in the city centre.
In general our urban areas are not offering either tourists or those of us who live in them a wonderful quality of life – we need to do something about that. Dublin or Cork should be holding their own against places more like say like Auckland, Copenhagen, Bergen etc etc etc and we’re just not.
European tourists also tend to focus on city tourism more than exploring rural areas. If we are going to create a good impression, we need to get them out into those places and stop pretending we’ve got wonderful cities for week long breaks. All of them are basically day trip locations within big rural hinterlands.
It’s hilarious seeing businesses putting out the ole ‘ your great great great great great grandfather’s dog was Irish’ just to attract American visitors, who up to this point were the only tourists still coming in en masse. Now even Americans are turned off by the sky high prices.
Reap it Vinters and hotels. Your greed will be your downfall 🍾
Stop ripping people off and charge a fair price maybe?
My heart bleeds for them. The fact is, the tourism industry doesn’t want Irish tourists, instead they have focused their attention on the foreign, more wealthy tourist and they back this up by claiming the quality of the product they offer is higher than other countries bla bla bla.
Not once will anyone in the sector admit the problem is pricing. They say it costs a lot to continue to offer such a high quality product. I have tried to support local business and local tourism but they have continued to gouge me, there is no sense of loyalty so I take my money elsewhere.
Honestly, it serves them absolutely right for price gouging for years. The same thing is happening in the pub industry. No sympathy.
The tourism industry needs to quit whinging about the VAT rate and focus on the price it’s being charged on which is 100% within their control.
I haven’t stayed in Dublin in almost a decade because it’s cheaper to fly and stay pretty much anywhere else in Europe.
I ate in a restaurant in a 5 star hotel in Barcelona last weekend. The dinner was cheaper than it would be in Cork and the standard and service was far better.
Ok lets do this! *rubs his crystal ball*
I predict that the price won’t come down a single cent if they lower VAT to 9% for hospitality. Because if there is one thing that the players in the irish toursim industry can do better than moan, it’s this: Being greedy cunts.
Hotels have become too expensive for any budget friendly travel as now the cheaper ones are not open to the public.
Just look at the number of bus tours having drastically fallen since pre-covid levels, and how the hotels which used to cater for bus tours are now used for long term accommodation.
Just spent a week camping down in Kerry. Lots of Irish families, as well as many European tourists with tents, campers and caravans.
Spoke to a few businesses who commented on it being a v quiet year. Rented Kayaks and thought we’d have to book (a Saturday on August). Just turned up and they gave us them for as long as we wanted.
Restaurants seemed fairly busy. Probably less big bus tour groups than I’ve seen down there previously. Went to Kerry Cliffs and that seemed busy enough.
Overall value for money was OK. Think €50 a night for a patch of grass and electrical hook up is still bit steep but the site had a really nice atmosphere. Think this is the only way it makes sense for a family of 4 to visit parts of the country. Anything more than this you’d get better value going abroad with more guaranteed weather…although Europe is fucking roasting nowadays.
Maybe it’s time for a reset? The Americans are the big spenders and they aren’t coming in the same numbers.
If you set your entire tourism industry up as a venus flytrap for wealthy Americans prepared to spend any amount of money on a once in a lifetime nostalgia trip, then you cannot act surprised when no one else wants to come, or that you’re in big trouble when the wealthy Americans start to decide it’s not actually worth it any more.
We need a Tupac interactive museum in every city, other wise the state will collapse and our island will be owned by China by 2028.
Went to Galway this year for family holiday absolute rip off spent around 2000 on hotel , things to do and eating out , etc said never again. Could have easily got a flight and all inclusive for that
We have priced visitors out of the market. If I lived in Europe, I would not holiday here. I have had three sets of visitors coming to stay with us over the last year, and I have been embarrassed by the price of things – I almost told them not to come. One set of visitors were doing a road trip around Kerry, and the price of basic hotels was shocking. €7-€8 pints and glasses of wine starting at €8 are not sustainable.
We were looking for a week in Ireland this summer. Ended up getting the ferry and spending the week in hotels in Oxford and surrounds. Lovely experience and half the price of staying in a hotel in Ireland. Will be doing the same again next summer.
Prices are just absurd here.
Took a day trip to Galway last week and there’s a pizza place beside Eyre square charging 6.50 for a slice of pizza or 32 for a full one.
I was getting full pizzas in Rome the previous week for 8.
The industry deserves everything it gets for all the years of price gouging. Pricing ordinary people out for years now. Let it rot!
Was going to book a hotel in the west for a night for a mid week break. It was 260 euro for a room. No way. Did a day trip instead. Thought I’d stop off at the hotel to eat there as their restaurant was decent. Restaurant was closed. Asked what was going on at the reception, that had less than 15% occupancy so they had not opened the restaurant. Opened my phone, yes prices were still at 260 euro. Completely insane.
Rip off Ireland- not nearly worth the price tag
The cost of accommodation is the killer.
I’m not surprised. I moved to Ireland over 4 years ago and I haven’t seen much outside of Dublin or county Wicklow (I was able to see more when I was doing my Erasmus year in the North over 7 years ago when you could still find some cheap hostels in Galway or Cork). Whenever I’m trying to plan some short holidays with my partner, we end up going abroad cause it’s cheaper to pay for flight tickets and a hotel almost everywhere else than just for accomodation here.
Our family stayed in Galway city center for 1 night over the bank holiday weekend. 375 for one room for 3 people. Hotels in Ireland are not worth it for what you get.
The decade of super-low interest rates has distorted reality unfortunately. You’ve essentially a generation of businesses built on the assumption that money is “free”. In addition, you have industries that fundamentally don’t seem to work. I don’t have insider knowledge of the hospitality industry but if you’re relying on VAT rate decreases to survive something is broken. In addition, most hotels are owned by one entity and run by another one. That shift must be a sign of something (value is owning the building / land vs running it?).
I expect some delicate dancing needed to try and get through this unwinding of super-low interest rates. Risk of major downsides / collateral damage has to be high in my opinion. 😢