Tourism chiefs feared that Planet story would go global

Concerns over travel bible article over cost of visiting Ireland

TOURISM Ireland was worried a Lonely Planet article about the cost of visiting Ireland would get ‘amplified’ across the world amid a ‘consistent number of complaints’ about rising bills for holidaymakers, the Mail has learned.

The State agency found there was a steady level of complaints online from visitors to Ireland on social media, with 55 of 68 issues raised in a single week relating to costs, and 42% of all complaints specifically about car hire.

Tourism Ireland said there was continuing ‘low-level feedback’ on the cost of renting a car as well as hotel room prices from trade partners and on social media.

However, the agency said they had so far largely escaped negative coverage in mainstream media in a briefing paper.

The country-by-country special report on rising costs, released under the Freedom of Information Act, found similar issues in other European countries.

Tourism Ireland were also worried about an article from travel bible Lonely Planet, which warned of ‘soaring hotel costs’ and how renting a car would make a ‘significant dent’ in a budget. An internal email said: ‘It came up as a top story alert for me on Twitter so will keep an eye on that – danger of it getting amplified across countries as a tourism topic.’ A colleague responded to say: ‘Thanks, we’ll… keep an eye out for whether this is picked up in non-Irish media.’

In June, Lonely Planet warned tourists of the ‘horrors’ of visiting Dublin due to ‘accommodation shortages, soaring car rental costs and airport chaos,’ which made international headlines around that time.

Visitors travelling to Dublin were advised to ask themselves a series of questions ahead of making the journey – the main one being ‘have you booked your accommodation in advance?’ The travel site said: ‘Soaring hotel costs are wreaking havoc with holidaymakers’ budgets, as figures from the Central Statistics Office show price increases of up to 17% for hotel accommodation in Ireland over the last three years.’

Lonely Planet added a quote from the Tourism Advisory Group, which heard that tourism groups across the country are ‘scrambling’ to find beds in the city citing increased travel demands and hotels providing emergency accommodation for refugees.

The travel experts said: ‘Finding last-minute accommodation won’t be easy. Lonely Planet looked at weekend availability in Dublin city centre in July for two people and average prices ranged between €700 and €900 on Booking.com.

The guide said car rental prices have skyrocketed after rental companies had to sell half of their stock during the pandemic.

It added: ‘In a case that made headlines in May, a couple were quoted €18,703 to rent a sevenseater car from Dublin Airport for the first week of August. And while that is exceptional, the cost of renting a car will make a significant dent in your budget.’

The report stated trade partners in France were particularly concerned about ‘ongoing price and availability issues’.

Operators in France were seeing hotel room allocations cancelled as well as ‘very high weekday rates for Dublin city centre hotels’.

In Belgium and the Netherlands, tour operators reported issues with cancelled hotel rooms due to their reallocation for refugees fleeing Ukraine.

The feedback from Germany was also ‘still very positive’ with high interest in holidays in Ireland and the travel industry there unable to meet demand for August.

In Spain, costs were a ‘hot topic’, but concern there primarily centred on their own industry.

From the USA, there was feedback about the supply of accommodation and car rental.

There had also been high-profile coverage of the queue and baggage issues that have dogged Dublin Airport for the past number of months.

In the UK, coverage of costs was mainly confined to a newspaper for the Irish diaspora with national media focused on rail strikes.

The report said car rental prices were an issue in many countries and continued to get widespread media coverage.

‘Soaring hotel are wreaking havoc’ ‘Car rental prices have skyrocketed’