Warning over high prices as tourist figures rise by 7%

IRELAND’S tourism boom is getting boomier – but travel chiefs have warned that all the hard work winning the extra visitors could be undone if our valuefor-money reputation is lost.

The attractions of the Wild Atlantic Way, Dublin, the Ancient East and the Causeway Coast helped increase the number of overseas visitors to the country in the first four months of the year to over 2.8million.

That’s a jump of 7.3% on the same period last year, Central Statistic Office figures released yesterday reveal. But feedback picked up by Fáilte Ireland shows the country’s reputation as a ‘value for money’ destination is ‘softening’.

Fáilte Ireland chief Paul Kelly warned: ‘If that trend should continue, we will become considered as an expensive destination. Should that happen, all the good work of recent years will be undone and it could take us years to reverse that perception.’

The biggest rise in visitor numbers came from the US and Canada, which were up by almost 15% to 178,600. Ireland’s biggest market, Britain, was dented after a fall in the value of sterling when it voted for Brexit but visitor numbers are rising again.

British visitors were up by 1.1% to 1,121,000 in the first four months of the year. Junior tourism minister Brendan Griffin said: ‘It is particularly reassuring to see that visit numbers from Great Britain are beginning to stabilise and are no longer in decline.’

But Tourism Ireland chief Niall Gibbons warned that the impact of Brexit was a ‘concern’. ‘While we welcome the fact that arrivals from Britain are up very slightly by 1.1%, this doesn’t represent a turnaround in the long-term trend,’ he said.

‘The impact of Brexit on outbound travel from Britain, therefore, remains a concern. The fall in the value of sterling has made holidays and short breaks here more expensive for British visitors and has made Britain more affordable for visitors from many of our top markets. Competitiveness and value for money remain more important than ever in Britain this year.’