Tourism still struggling since foot and mouth - hotels chief

Tourism still struggling since foot and mouth disease – hotels chief


Anton McNulty

THE Irish tourism industry has still not recovered from the decision of the Irish Government to tell British people not to visit the country during the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001.
That’s according to John Power, CEO of the Irish Hotels Federation. He was the guest speaker at the AGM of Westport Tourism held in Hotel Westport where he was commenting on the fall-off in of tourists to Ireland in 2009.
The last year has seen the number of overseas visitors fall by 12 per cent on the previous year and the revenue produced by tourism fall by 17 per cent.
While Mr Power acknowledged that the global recession was a significant challenge to Ireland, he felt the government’s decision to value the protection of agriculture above tourism during the Foot and Mouth outbreak of 2001 was still being felt in the tourism sector.
“Tourism is down by 17 per cent on the previous year and the weakest sector in particular is the British market which is a large market for this area. That market continues to deteriorate and has been continuously deteriorating I believe since 2001 when we told the British people not to come to Ireland because of Foot and Mouth. Irish tourism and rural Ireland has never really recovered the British market since then.
“The rural British tourist who takes his car over has been in decline since 2001 when we issued those instructions and it just shows how important it is not to send out negative messages. People will find alternative locations when they are told not to come and I believe that attitude will take us a long time to get over,” he said.
Mr Power revealed that from a hotel’s perspective the occupancy rate of hotels had fallen from a peak of 64 per cent in 2007 to 54 per cent in 2009 and this was more prominent in the west and north-west. He said the rise of hotel rooms, which had risen from 27,000 rooms in 1996 to today’s figure of 61,000, was unsustainable, and a study revealed that there are between 12,000 and 15,000 rooms too many in Ireland.
He said the challenge facing the industry was what to do with all these rooms where he said the demand and supply was out of sync and debts of €6.6 billion which the hotels owed to the banks.
“We can’t advise people on prices but we advise people to have the courage to value their product but, for God’s sake, don’t rush down their prices. Lets be proud of the product we have in Ireland because the quality of our hotels and guest houses in towns like Westport are among the highest in Europe.”
Mr Power - who worked on and off in Westport for a number of years with the Ryan Hotel Group - was full of praise for what Westport has achieved in terms of tourism and added the level of co-operation among businesses was an example to all in the industry.
“Westport is an example of what a real Irish holiday should be. It is an example of what can be done when people get together and work together and you have only to look at the Westport Tourism website to see what is to be done in Westport. From a national perspective I feel the success of Westport is largely due to the established effect of all businesses in the community and the public sector. So often we see tourism left in the hands of hotels, guest houses and attractions but it is encouraging to see that the the members of Westport Tourism include all businesses of Westport. That is what makes it so effective and an example of what other towns can do if they get together to improve tourism.”