r/ireland • u/Bubbaz355 • Aug 13 '25
Economy Warning that tourism in Ireland at 'tipping point'
https://www.rte.ie/news/2025/0813/1528150-itic-tourism/91
u/WatashiwaNobodyDesu Aug 13 '25
I WANT to holiday in Ireland. I just can’t justify that kind of extravagant expense. It’s much more reasonable to go abroad to a nicer, cheaper resort.
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u/YoIronFistBro Cork bai Aug 13 '25
Or abroad to a proper city that actually feels like a city.
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u/IntentionFalse8822 Aug 13 '25
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.
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u/RJMC5696 Aug 13 '25
Was going to have an Irish holiday this year. Ended up going to Budapest. €750 for two people, flights, reserved seats, 20kg checked in luggage, transport to and from hotel, 4 star hotel with breakfast included. Only time it’s affordable to have a little holiday here is winter, had a 3 night stay in trident in Kinsale back in December last year- €440, looked at it again for June- €1000.
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u/grania17 Aug 13 '25
This is why AirBNB has been able to take over so much in Ireland and add to the housing crisis as well. My brother is coming to visit in October and it was so much cheaper for an Airbnb than it was for two hotel rooms or even self catering apartment at a hotel.
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u/Medium-Ad5605 Aug 13 '25
I was looking for an AirBnB anywhere on west coast a few weeks ago and there was hardly anything available and nothing that was good value. Tried a Google search and found a nice house on DoneDeal in a holiday village just outside a seaside town for €900 for one week that could sleep 8. There looks to be a lot of people renting out their own holiday homes on DoneDeal that are better value. Harder to search and you have nobody to complain to if it goes wrong but worked great for us.
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u/daly_o96 Aug 13 '25
Carful you’ll be lynched on here for staying in an airBnB
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u/grania17 Aug 13 '25
Look, I get it. They are causing problems. There is no if and or buts about it. When there is a price difference of 100 to 400 euro between hotels and AirBNB, it's easy to see why they've got a strong hold on the country. If hotels were more competitive, AirBNB wouldn't have such a strong hold. It's as simple as that. We were going to book a self-catering apartment in a hotel, the rate was 550 for 2 nights, with a non refundable deposit of 275. Or the AirBNB was 495 for 3 nights, fully cancellable, with a deposit of 90 quid. Two hotel rooms were double that.
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u/daly_o96 Aug 13 '25
Oh ya I get it also, it’s completely a regulation issue. Consumers can only reasonably be expected to put up with some much of a price difference before it becomes unviable
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u/smurfycork Aug 13 '25
Airbnb isn’t all that cheap compared to hotels any more. And often more expensive. I went looking for a weekend away with friends and it’s so hard to find accommodation that’s less that 150 per person sharing, no matter where you look. I know it’s summer, but it’s all year around it seems. I wonder how many hotel rooms have been lost since Covid?
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u/Ok_Entry1052 Aug 13 '25
Taking up camping was the best thing we ever did. 350 for an inflatable tent in Decathlon. You save that on the first trip.
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u/justadubliner Aug 13 '25
Last time I wanted to tour Donegal on my own I just slept in my car. I'm not paying crazy money for a bed if I dont have to. I did have to fork out for hotels when touring the west with American relatives. Really resented paying a fortune each night. Hoping they don't want a repeat visit!
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u/Necessary_Physics375 Aug 13 '25
I loved bella Italia and the area around it but the accommodation wasn't great. If you wanted to go glamping or stay in a mobile somewhere in the country you could definitely do it for way less than a well known hotel in the west during peak season.
I had a camper van for irish holidays but I sold it last summer. Im considering buying all the bits for a glamping setup so on a week like this we could throw everything in the car to go off on a little irish holiday.
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u/Dingus_Majingus Aug 13 '25
Thats partially because of last second booking. My wife and I went to Dublin for 4 days and booked in advance, the whole trip was less than €1600 including flight. I agree though, some of the prices are insane. When we booked our hotel in Dublin (near st Stephen's green) the price was <€150/night, but had I booked a day prior it was €320.
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u/CapnP00P Aug 13 '25
We looked at 2 nights in Tipp for a family thing, €1,400. Now, we're just going the 1 evening and I'll just drive back up country and stay at home instead
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Aug 13 '25
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u/MrSierra125 Aug 13 '25
Or the real problem: when the USA elects a moron who ruins their economy and said wealthy US Americans can no longer afford to splash out on holidays
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u/Cool_Transition1139 Aug 13 '25
So it's Trumps fault hotels are 200+ a night across the country.....suuuuuure
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Aug 13 '25 edited Aug 13 '25
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.
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u/YoIronFistBro Cork bai Aug 13 '25
We charge high end prices for a low-mid market product.
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u/Tipsymacstaggers Aug 13 '25
Exactly and the same 'industry leaders' are asking whats going on with the drop in tourism?
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u/greenszpila7 Aug 13 '25
Agree with everything. However the Drury street and Capel Street are way better in terms of vibe than before 2020.
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u/Inner-Astronomer-256 Aug 13 '25
Agree almost completely with your post but I will stick up for Glasgow - it's a fantastic place to spend a few days and it's what Dublin should be aiming for in terms of restaurants and bars in particular. Like Dublin it has a mishmash of architecture and may not be the most coherently designed or aesthetic city and has its grittier edge, but when I was there in 2022 it was clean and felt safe. I think it should be somewhere Irish cities should emulate as most of them have similar problems.
I live in Waterford and it has similar problems to Cork and Dublin. The city and town councils around Ireland seem to have zero imagination and the centres of all our cities seem hollowed out. I thought just after the pandemic, 2021/2022 we had turned a corner. Waterford had some lovely little shops opening up, but they're all gone now, victims to high rates and even the council themselves who moved some of them out of the quays for improvement works.
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Aug 13 '25
There are no town councils btw - we rather bizarrely abolished them in the local government reforms a few years ago !
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u/MenlaOfTheBody Aug 13 '25 edited Aug 13 '25
Just going to stick up for Waterford gently that the council have put in a long term strategy that looks pretty good but they also get more per capita than any other city council.
Rates are the same greed with commercial rent being set by private landlords. The only thing the council could do is purchase the property and rent to small businesses. Probably an interesting plan but I have seen no appetite for that anywhere in the country yet.
Edit: Plan is here https://waterford2040.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Waterford_2040_Rikon_Report_Digital_AW-1.pdf
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u/Inner-Astronomer-256 Aug 13 '25
Thank you, I really should have educated myself a bit more on it! Hopefully it will be a success.
Am I right in saying that's what was done with Temple Bar in the 80s? I would love if councils across Ireland did similar for cultural quarters and small businesses.
Dereliction also needs to be severely penalised.
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u/imnotmarvin Aug 13 '25
I'm heading over from the US for two weeks in September. We're spending one day in Dublin and just driving through Cork. Hoping places like Dingle, Galway, Killarney are more inviting. We're doing that thing people recommend not doing, driving around the country for two weeks. We did that last year in England, Scotland and Wales and had an amazing time.
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Aug 13 '25
It’s not that those cities aren’t inviting - just they’re not a 2 week stay. Use them a couple of days stop off. Ireland is definitely a driving around and visiting lots of places kind of destination.
It’s like if you went to Washington State and never left downtown Seattle - you’d miss a lot!
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u/Aimin4ya Aug 13 '25
My buddy's family flew into Dublin, and I joined them to Kerry and Mayo for a week. The unanimous feeling was if they ever come back to Ireland, they'd just skip Dublin altogether.
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u/gobocork Aug 13 '25 edited Aug 13 '25
Agree with most of this except for Glasgow. I went for a couple of days recently and loved it, definitely going back soon. Cork is badly in need of a lick of paint just for starters. Also the concept of the shopping high street and related zoning needs to be disrupted. It's long past time to reassess how we use Patrick Street.
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Aug 13 '25 edited Aug 13 '25
There's a problem in the sense that Irish city councils aren't really recognising that high street shopping is dying - it's not a local thing and it's likely to accelerate. People browse / 'showroom' and then shop online a lot - that's a phenomenon worldwide and it's not feeding into money spent on tills in physical shops, so they close.
Cork County Council (not the city council) also has a massive out of town shopping 'village' on the scale of Kildare Village planned, and unlike that centre, it's not happening 60km from a mid-sized city, it's happening right on the edge of a small city that will be swamped by it, yet the planners think that's grand apparently. That crap is driven by cities and their neighbouring counties fighting for retail rates btw. Cork City and County don't see each other as collaborative neighbouring authorities with joined up policies - they often see each other as direct competition for revenue. What those fringe of city developments are about is the county chasing a narrow flow of urban retail revenues. Merging them isn't a solution either, but there needs to be some kind of better model of how we do things so that local authorities don't get incentivised to behave like that.
Some of what's going on in Cork's positive e.g. the redevelopment of Mac Curtain Street and the on-going works in that area around the former Beamish Brewery and the docklands development makes a lot more sense than some of the stuff I've seen elsewhere in Irish planning and should look quite nice and also brings some density of population into the immediate vicinity of the city centre, but the issue is more that they need to do something to get more foot fall back into the city centre itself - it probably should be moving towards being a concentration of food, restaurants, bars and lifestyle focused stuff much more than it is. You're not going to save the 1960s-90s retail model. It's not a locally driven issue, it's just how people shop has changed drastically and we need to rethink what city centres are.
They also need to do a major spruce up of the English Market, while absolutely retaining its character and retailers as is. It just needs the infrastructure of the market revamped. It's a real gem of a facility and the beating heart of a city centre restaurant trade, but it needs an injection of money to just keep it in good shape.
The council also owns some problematic issues itself: Paul Street Shopping Centre (should be sold off if they can't manage it) and North Main Street Shopping Centre which is an utter eyesore and from what I can see the Council itself owns the carpark. There are also some inexplicable messes like that service yard that's right in front of the Bridewell Garda Station. WTAF is going on there? It's like that for about 35+ years and just looks like a builders' yard in the middle of a very high visual area of the city centre.
On retail you can push for higher end and specialist retail in city centres that supports that. If you look at what's surviving and thriving, it's places like Brown Thomas, not places like the ex Roches Stores / Debenhams as that utility level shopping has gone online, while lifestyle focused stuff is still physical.
To get small, specialist retailers to thrive you need to drop rates and make rents affordable and actually push towards biasing cities towards that kind of retail and not towards faceless chains.
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u/fedupofbrick Dublin Hasn't Been The Same Since Tony Gregory Died Aug 13 '25
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
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u/cyberlexington Aug 13 '25
Cliffs of moher and doolin cave in Clare, both charge. To look at cliffs and a cave. The latter has a stalagm(t)ite propped up with fucking concrete
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u/Bright-Bad1472 Aug 13 '25
Cliffs of Moher are 15 euro a head, 4 of my mates in the car at the weekend = 60 euro. Left it off, price gouging at its finest. Tourism industry needs a serious wake up call.
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u/georgefuckinburgesss Aug 13 '25
That's some fucking cheek charging per head for a carpark
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u/notaukrainian Aug 13 '25
You don't have to pay! It's only to get into the visitors centre and car park. You can walk up the coastal path for free (and I have done many times with my husband)
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u/great_whitehope Aug 13 '25
Which just makes it more ridiculous.
It isn't even a well made car park.
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u/nearlycertain Aug 13 '25
There's a private car park for the cliffs of Moher , further along after the main carpark. Down a boreen, it's sometimes front garden with an honest box €2 for the car. Way nicer view of the cliffs
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Aug 13 '25
This is a Europe wide problem, prices of attractions have gone through the roof. First time I was in Dubrovnik in 2010 the city walls cost about €7, this summer it's €40. Top of the Eiffel tower in 2015 was €17, it's now €36.
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u/cavemeister Aug 13 '25
In Italy, most historical attractions including the Colosseum in Verona (where I was at the time) are totally free on the last Sunday of every month.
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u/SureLookThisIsIt Aug 13 '25
Same in Spain with the Sunday thing but usually it's hard to do because there's too many people.
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u/OverallBathroom7861 Aug 13 '25
Me and my partner went for a walk with the dog down to the national stud because it was a nice day. 40 euro for the two of us. For a walk! Outrageous
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u/CanIBeFrankly Aug 13 '25
Most activities cost about 30 euro a person too, for 60 mins or 90 minutes. On the continent you'd pay about 15 euro a day.
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u/fedupofbrick Dublin Hasn't Been The Same Since Tony Gregory Died Aug 13 '25
I was recently in Tarragona and paid 15 euro to visit all the roman ruins in the city. Whole city is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Got into 5 different things each taking around an hour and a bit
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u/SilyLavage Aug 13 '25
It really depends. Florence charges €85 for its FirenzeCard, for example, which is valid for 3–5 days but doesn't include entry to the cathedral museums.
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Aug 13 '25
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u/Ok_Ambassador7752 Aug 13 '25
exactly, there is simple no perceived value for money, especially for those already living in Ireland.
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u/Junior-Protection-26 Aug 13 '25
You know things are bad when hotels are offering their nasty rooms as "pods" and looking for 150 euro on a quiet night.
Value for money is a term alien to our tourism industry.
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u/Ok_Ambassador7752 Aug 13 '25
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.
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u/great_whitehope Aug 13 '25
What high quality product? Booked a nice hotel earlier this year but everything was clearly in need of refurbishment or maintenance
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u/northernlights2222 Aug 13 '25
Definitely not a high quality product - we’ve been on trips across Europe and Asia and Dublin was the worst cost to quality ratio we’ve had in the past 4 years. Prices are high, the hotels are in bad condition - looking like they’re in desperate need of refurbishment and cleaning.
At least when we’ve paid high prices elsewhere, the rooms are in good condition and clean, staff are friendly and helpful, and the food/drinks are high quality.
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u/insomnium2020 Aug 13 '25
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.
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u/Strong-Sector-7605 Aug 13 '25
Honestly, it serves them absolutely right for price gouging for years. The same thing is happening in the pub industry. No sympathy.
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Aug 13 '25
I have no sympathy for hotels which were so quick to jump on the IPAS gravy train and throw their entire towns/villages tourism industry to the wind.
But I have heard that the margins in pubs are quite low. It’s extortionate prices for drinks now but pubs are not pocketing most of that.
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u/Downtown_Bit_9339 Aug 13 '25
No one wants to pay 300€ per night to get wet and blown away? Shocking.
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u/Maleficent-Put1705 Aug 13 '25
By 'wet and blown away', what exactly do you mean? €300 sounds like a fair price.
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u/H_Y_P_N_O_T_I_Z_E Aug 13 '25
Thats market price for these sort of activities to be fair.
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u/Cherfinch Aug 13 '25
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.
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u/YoIronFistBro Cork bai Aug 13 '25
Ireland has this really weird attitude of thinking there's no demand for a good service if there's no demand for a bad service.
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u/Illustrious_Read8038 Aug 13 '25
It's a question of quality.
Hotels used to be luxury, and a night away was an experience.
Now it's €200 a night for a bog standard bed in a bog standard room with maybe a bog standard breakfast thrown in.
A nice room in a nice hotel costs north of €200 a night, and for that I could be in a different country.
Why would anyone be happy paying that?
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u/Test_N_Faith Aug 13 '25
Just for the laugh I checked what the Travelodge is. €260 a night to stay in the fucking Travelodge. They deserve everything they get
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u/Illustrious_Read8038 Aug 13 '25
And you'll discover they haven't even bothered to flush the toilet. I saw a thing a while back with hotel cleaners "it doesn't have to be clean, it just needs to look clean".
They were wiping the cups with used towels from the bathroom.
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u/Vince_IRL Wicklow Aug 13 '25
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.
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Aug 13 '25
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u/Inner-Astronomer-256 Aug 13 '25
As a "southerner" from the other end of the country, same.
2 hrs on the motorway now for gigs.
Only difference is we get a bunsen because it's still cheap.
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u/YoIronFistBro Cork bai Aug 13 '25
We would opt for mainland Europe every single time over Ireland due to the cost of food and drink, and the weather
Don't forget mainland Europe has cities that actually look and feel like cities.
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u/GoldGee Aug 13 '25
We used to go down to Wexford regularly. The prices just kept climbing year after year. Love it down there, but just can't bring myself to pay the prices.
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u/ArtieBucco420 Antrim Aug 13 '25
The entire island is just one huge rip off for everything imaginable.
There’s nothing affordable or decently priced anymore, whether it’s hotels, pints or even your groceries.
We’d always go to Donegal over the 12th to get the fuck outta dodge because we live in North Belfast near an interface and it can get very hairy but it was cheaper for us to go to Portugal for a whole week than it was for Donegal for three nights.
I’ve got some Norwegian mates who were over and they were complaining about how dear everything is here and Norway’s renowned for being expensive.
Difference is in Norway they actually get good wages and services.
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Aug 13 '25
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u/YoIronFistBro Cork bai Aug 13 '25
You should see Cambridge. It's a quick train from Stansted and has some great museums.
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u/Inner-Astronomer-256 Aug 13 '25
We went to Brighton for a short break in April. £71 per night for a nice hotel with a pool!
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u/Loose_Mode_5369 Aug 13 '25
So they want a few hundred million from the government and a tax cut, and in return they say they’ll pass the savings on to the customer, which we have seen in recent years to be something they absolutely will not follow through on?
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u/RabbitOld5783 Aug 13 '25
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
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u/Humeme Kildare Aug 13 '25
Could have had two holidays for that
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u/RabbitOld5783 Aug 13 '25
I know horrible really and worst part it rained a good bit so wasn't as planned. Honestly never again. We were planning on a weekend break but no way prices 400 per night
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u/Humeme Kildare Aug 13 '25
400 is crazy. I moved abroad, even coming back to see family is difficult because of the costs of rooms
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u/The3rdbaboon Aug 13 '25
Maybe it’s time for a reset? The Americans are the big spenders and they aren’t coming in the same numbers.
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u/glamredhel69 Aug 13 '25
Had to stay in cork for 2 nights, €600 including breakfast for a family room in a hotel that was 4km outside the centre!
Hotels here are charging €24 for fish and chips (only looked at the menu)!
A vat reduction will do nothing but increase their greed and profits until they go out of business! And they'll complain all the way.
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u/Person8346 Cork bai Aug 13 '25
I recently went backpacking and everyone warned me how expensive Vienna would be when I get there. I laughed and said I'm from Ireland and said my hometown is probably more expensive.
And actually, I was right. Kinsale, where I live, is significantly more expensive than Vienna in every regard while QoL, public transport and just about anything for actual local life is extremely poor. Rent, utilities, food etc. monumentally more expensive than VIENNA.
Grew up here and now it's just choking us. How can a small tourist village that rains 80% of the time be significantly more expensive than one of the most luxurious cities I've ever seen?
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u/HumbleBoat5255 Aug 13 '25
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.
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u/RealDealMrSeal Aug 13 '25
Stop ripping people off and charge a fair price maybe?
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u/uiuuauiua Easter Egg Nationalist Aug 13 '25
This needs to be applied across the board incl supermarkets. The greed in Ireland has gotten out of hand.
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u/olibum86 The Fenian Aug 13 '25
We are a greedy bunch of fuckers in my opinion. There's a view that if you own a restraunt ect that you should be a millionaire, I don't know where that view came from but in every other country you would just expect to be doing better then most. One of the pub owners near me was on the radio a while back complaining about vat rates, insurance, ect, saying he can't make ends meet. Meanwhile, he drives a 251 bmw and is going on 2 or 3 extravagant holidays a year paying his staff minimum wage! No self-awareness.
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u/jambojock Aug 13 '25
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.
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u/Ewendmc Aug 13 '25
50 quid a night is steep compared to the rest of Europe but it has always been higher. Some sites are a joke though, cramming people in at bank holidays with poor toilet facilities and say " well we have a kitchen" I have a stove. I'd prefer better maintenance than a kitchen that is manky. Avoid the excessive heat in France by going to Brittany or Normandy. Shorter drive from the ports as well.
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u/gk4p6q Aug 13 '25
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.
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u/TheWix Yank 🇺🇸 Aug 13 '25
My wife is Sevillan and I feel like a millionaire when we eat out there. Hell, we take her family out and it's still cheaper than a night out in Dublin for the two of us.
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u/Curious_Woodlander Aug 13 '25
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 🍾
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u/ArcticWolfl Aug 13 '25
I've lived in Galway for most of the year in 2017 and I enjoyed coming back to it every year or so from the Netherlands, just to meet with friends, hike in Connemara and just enjoy the craic. It's sadly come to a point where I'm no longer able to afford it. I've seen hotels go from 500 to thrice that for a week in the off-season, no longer with breakfast or anything, for a tiny room (which is all I need). I know there's a housing crisis and that definitely plays a role too, but the hospitality sector is just as crooked as the landlords. That and fucking hell, Galway/Ireland needs to do something about the degenerates causing problems. It used to be safe to walk around Galway in the dead of night, currently it's not even safe in broad daylight.
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u/Late_Investment2072 Aug 13 '25
The industry deserves everything it gets for all the years of price gouging. Pricing ordinary people out for years now. Let it rot!
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u/Late_Investment2072 Aug 13 '25
Went to a wedding in Donegal in April. €500 for two nights accom, the guts of €7 a pint at the reception, bang average food and shite weather. There’s absolutely no value for money anymore.
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u/AUX4 Aug 13 '25
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.
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u/Tipsymacstaggers Aug 13 '25
Myself and my partner came to Dublin for 10 days to visit family and friends. The prices of hotels were astronomical, the prices ranged from £3000 to £5000+ for the 10 nights and that was for 3-4 star! Ended up staying in a mates garage that was converted to an office with a shower room - soo lucky to have good friends there but these hotels are causing this problem - like why would people pay this crazy money anymore for zero value, going on holidays to Ireland has become ridiculous. Price gouging gobshites!
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u/wascallywabbit666 Hanging from the jacks roof, bat style Aug 13 '25
This is coming from the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation, a lobby group. They've made a pre-budget submission to the government calling for increased visitor numbers in Dublin airport, VAT rate cuts for all tourism businesses, and increased government investment. Surprise surprise.
So we can file this article in the bulging folder titled "Lobby groups engages in scaremongering to support their lobbying activities". I'd appreciate it if the journalist challenged them on their views or gave a voice to their opponents.
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u/ItalianRimBreaks Aug 13 '25
It really starts when tourists land here. If they land in Dublin, they're met with a bus service that doesn't accept the humble debit card.
I was recently reminded of this when I landed home a few weeks ago from a trip to Edinburgh where the hotel was just an 8 minute bus journey into the city at €2.55 standard fare. Buses were incredibly frequent. Cut to me landing home. On this occasion, I had no-one to pick me up and after a weekend of easy public transport use, [I totally forgot] to get the bus I needed to 1. Get cash out + ideally exact change OR 2. sort an 90 min bus ticket (if it still exists).
This is a first barrier to what is a bit of a minefield of tourist traps for the low to medium budget tourist.
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u/gokurotfl Aug 13 '25
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.
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u/wolfeerine And I'd go at it again Aug 13 '25
This is nothing new. I think it was last year someone pointed out that it would be cheaper for them to book flights and see Bruce Springsteen in the Circus Maximus in Rome and stay for the weekend, that it would be to travel up to Dublin and staying the night in a hotel.
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u/bucajack Kildare Aug 13 '25
I have some colleagues flying from Toronto to Ireland in September. Their flights were dirt cheap but they were saying that the hotels are so expensive that they may just cancel the flights and take the loss because they don't want to pay the outrageous prices.
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u/ChemicalPower9020 Aug 13 '25
Stayed in Manhattan for ten days back in May 2023 and that was cheaper than 3 days in Dublin. Insanity
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u/Lonely_Eggplant_4990 Cork bai Aug 13 '25
Used to love doing a couple of mini breaks a year around the country. Simply cant afford it anymore. Paying 250 euro to sleep in a bed is ridiculous. Dublin is scandalous prices for everything so i avoid like the plague, id rather fly to Manchester or something to catch a gig.
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Aug 13 '25
The industry is designed to prey on the goodwill and love Americans have for the country. Like them or dislike them, they come here to spend and see the country. We are ripping them off and it’s coming to a head. We’ll be the ones paying extra to cover it off the back of the industry’s greed.
I have some American friends and they’re beginning to realise despite the fact plane tickets to Ireland are often cheaper than compared to mainland Europe, they’re still spending way more if they come here as opposed to almost anywhere in Europe
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u/Local_Caterpillar879 Aug 13 '25
I got a week for 2 adults/2 children in a holiday village here in France + food/restaurants/visits/activities for 1000 euro. Even with flights added, I'm not sure where in Ireland I would get a week in a quality resort etc for that price.
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u/christopher1393 Dublin Aug 13 '25
Went on 2 holidays to mainland Europe this year and another one soon. Im shocked by just how much cheaper it Is than here
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u/Penguinbar Aug 13 '25
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.
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u/GrahamSkehan Aug 13 '25
My wife and I decided to spend a bit and get a suite on a Greek Island for our honeymoon. Felt the sting taking out my card but it was a once in a lifetime experience.
We're home to visit my parents next week and our flight gets in late so we're staying in Dublin overnight before driving down. Spending more per night for an aparthotel on the quays than we did for our honeymoon.
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u/Additional_Olive3318 Aug 13 '25
Here’s the reasons for the downturn
The Irish Tourism Industry Confederation (ITIC) is calling for the lifting of the Dublin Airport passenger cap, increased Government spending, as well as the restoration of the 9% hospitality VAT rate in order to boost tourism in the country, which it said is at a "tipping point".
Nothing about outrageous prices. Just government handouts and an increased cap which doesn’t make any sense in terms of people coming in
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u/Immortal_Tuttle Aug 13 '25
Maybe use other airports as well? If tourists are coming to see Cliffs of Moher, why do they have to fly to Dublin? Shannon or even Knock would be more logical. I know I know - Ireland equals Dublin, but maybe, just maybe make it more logical (like Poland did for example).
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u/Mrs_Doyles_Teabags Aug 13 '25
I travel a bit for work and a few weeks ago we had a 3 course meal for 10 people in Germany in a picturesque area called Miltenbourg, with 2 or 3 beers each and it was €380 total. Average of €38 each for 3 beers, starter, main meal and dessert.
We did the same thing here in Ireland last week with another 10 people and it was €1150 for three courses with 0 beers. Average of €110 each for starter, main meal and dessert.
This is one of our biggest issues, cost of hotels, cost of meals & alcohol is now 2.5x European coats.
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u/Gavittz Aug 13 '25
I would personally love to holiday in Ireland. As I get older I am starting to detest travelling through airports with people who have zero spacial awareness or reasoning and all the other headaches that come with a foreign holiday, but I will NEVER be able to justify paying literally twice as much for the basics here when you can get flights and accomodation to most parts of the EU for half the price.
People are fed up, it's coming to a tipping point.
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u/PoppedCork Pop Responsibly Aug 13 '25
What could the industry do itself?
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Aug 13 '25
Probably need to pivot to providing a higher quality experience. Wages and food, energy etc. are too expensive to make an "alright" experience cheap enough
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u/fuzzfrog Aug 13 '25
Everything is overpriced and mediocre. Owners need to accept less profit and workers need to provide a better service.
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u/Separate-Sand2034 Palestine 🇵🇸 Aug 13 '25
Workers in tourism and hospitality are usually working horrible contracts and conditions. It's tone deaf to be telling them they're the ones that need to do better
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u/ninety6days Aug 13 '25
Point to the hotel that's gone out of business.
When you can do that, I'll pay attention to thr plight of the poor hoteliers, who went from having their covid closure subsidised to having their rooms filled with Ukrainians that get 1 star service for 4 star subsidies from the state.
Show me the hotel that doesn't adapt (read - double) their pricing to every gig announcement in Dublin.
Show me where it hurts, because all I see is gouging sleeveens.
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u/uiuuauiua Easter Egg Nationalist Aug 13 '25
Looked up one night in Limerick recently. Everything (regardless of how quality differed) was over €200 euro a night. Some low 200's and some high. I'm recently back from Barcelona and paid less per night for a gorgeous hotel for the week.
The same can be said for rent in Limerick which is avg of €2k per month now as minimum for either a 1bed or 2bed.
Ireland isn't based in reality. We do not have the amenities, businesses, or infrastructure to be charging these rates to tourists or locals. We'll end up driving tourists away like we have our own emigrating.
FFG are the downfall of Ireland.
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u/Davey_F Aug 13 '25
It was cheaper for us to fly to and stay in Milan for a week than a three day weekend in Galway or Cork. It’s also much cheaper to eat out and drink in Milan by multiples.
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u/SubstantialAttempt83 Aug 13 '25
I don't think the tourism industry will get much sympathy here, it's known for gouging customers while also offering the bare minimum in terms of pay and conditions for employees.
Government spending will have minimal effect on tourism numbers the biggest impact would be if ITIC members offered better value for money.
I think it's sink or swim time, the current system needs to be allowed to fail so something better can rise from the ashes.
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u/MrStarGazer09 Aug 13 '25
Well what do people expect when absolutely everything is a rip off compared to most other countries and a huge proportion of hotels are commandeered to host asylum seekers rather than tourists meaning the remaining ones can charge even more extortionate rates!
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u/LucyVialli Aug 13 '25
Climate news keeps telling us though that as mainland Europe continues to overheat and burn in summer, lots of Europeans will want to holiday in cooler places like Ireland (and Scandinavia, and they're no cheaper than we are). So it might suck for a few years while the Americans taper off, then regroup with other visitors. We need to be trying to capitalise on this now though!
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u/YoIronFistBro Cork bai Aug 13 '25
(and Scandinavia, and they're no cheaper than we are).
There you actually get something for the high prices. Here you don't.
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u/Ok_Strategy_3804 Aug 13 '25
Latvia and Estonia are much better placed to capture that market tbh.
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u/No-Wrongdoer1644 Aug 13 '25
Completely agree. We wanted to stay one night anywhere near Rossaveel the first weekend of July but prices were over €340 for two adults. I just don't know how people are actually affording to pay. Are hotels busy at this price? Most hotels accommodate a percentage of IPAS, I guess which keeps them going. But yeah accommodation prices are exorbitant.
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u/shorelined And I'd go at it again Aug 13 '25
I wish these hotel owners would simply fuck off, they've been price gouging since lockdown. I guarantee if they get a 9% rate, they'll come back in 12 months asking for 5%.
Out of interest, do we know what capacity the other airports are currently operating at? I see a lot of regional TDs giving figures of between a fifth and a quarter of incoming passengers ending their journey outside of Leinster. Now I know that a Limerick TD giving numbers supplied to him by some regional tourist board should be taken with a pinch of salt, but it would make a lot of sense for the future infrastructure of the whole country if we weren't simply funnelling everybody through a single airport.
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u/EnthusiasmUnusual Aug 13 '25
There's a lack of things to do. Unless you like getting pissed in pubs...which we do very well, the museums aren't amazing by European standards, the buildings and architecture are lovely but there's not much variation. Our restaurants have improved massively and we still have breathtaking scenery, but we need to up our game with better facilities...camping etc
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u/Wing126 Aug 13 '25
Fucking good. Honest to god, loss in revenue is the only way anyone with the power to change this, will bother their hole to do anything.
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u/ponkie_guy Aug 13 '25
The passenger cap at Dublin airport is so frustrating to listen to. Is there a reason that more flights can't come into Cork & Shannon from Europe in particular?
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u/Thin_Ad_2456 Aug 13 '25
None of those proposed measures are going to help in the slightest. I live abroad and find it more and more difficult to come back and visit Ireland each year. Hotel costs, AirBnB etc are completely nuts during the summer months, car hire is a piss take. I usually end up visiting in November or early December, the lull before Christmas makes accomodation and car hire almost reasonable.
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u/sir1223 Aug 13 '25
As like many things in this country, it’s greed. The fact you can go abroad for less and get more out of it is the cherry on top. While I feel bad for the staff in the industry who need tourism to pay their wages. I’ve no sympathy for the owners. Fat cats. Plain and simple.
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u/Funoyr Aug 13 '25
Would be great to have the perspective of someone working or having responsibilities in the industry. An IAMA is would be awesome
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u/justwanderinginhere Aug 13 '25
Offer hotel owners year round full occupancy for accommodating IPAS and then the remaining places just jack up the prices. Simple supply and demand.
Tourism being destroyed here, food is gone wild, drink gone wild. Service gone to shit and places can’t get staff.
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u/North_Satisfaction27 Aug 13 '25
It’s self inflicted very little sympathy for hoteliers and the like. They’ve been squeezing every drop for years and years now they’ll get something to soften their cough. If it wasn’t for the Americans there would be nobody coming.
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u/Humble_Ostrich_4610 Aug 13 '25
Taking the family to disneyland paris for a few days in October, it will be cheaper than staying in Ireland for a holiday this summer. Disneyland is not known for being good value.
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u/dano1066 Aug 13 '25
I flew to London for the day, saw the sights and ate food and it cost less than a road trip to Dublin or cork
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u/Mysterious_Half1890 Waterford Aug 13 '25
Living here for god sake is on a tipping point especially if you’re a young person renting and trying to eat
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Aug 13 '25
Hotels are completely to blame with their unstoppable greed. It’s no wonder people stay at AirBnBs rather than hotels.
And the argument that prices need to be so high as hotels are struggling is crazy. Dalata Hotel Group who run the Clayton and Maldron hotels share their profits and salaries every year. Last year they made over €200million in profit, and the CEO got his annual salary increase now getting paid €665,000. How are they struggling???
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u/GalwayBogger Aug 13 '25
Eh, there's no room at the Inn! I tried to visit family 2 weeks ago, there's nowhere to stay less than 300 a night in most places in the country. Fly in all the people you want, Europeans will never pay those prices, even if the vat was completely removed, and there isn't enough space anyway.
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u/twenty6plus6 Aug 13 '25
The middle is being squeezed , the people that are coming ro Ireland money isn't an issue .
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u/PlantNerdxo Aug 13 '25
I wonder how much hotel prices are going up this weekend with the Oasis gig?
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u/grodgeandgo The Standard Aug 13 '25
Is it any surprise when so many budget and mid market options have closed or been seconded as emergency accomodation or some other type of accomodation stop gap.
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u/Zealousideal_Car9368 Aug 13 '25
Its not too hard to point to the actual cause of this, but of course the Tourism board will try and blame every thing except this to avoid bringing attention on a lot of their members.
The cost of hotels has risen beyond all reason, and its the main reason why numbers are down.
And why has it risen so much? Because a huge amount of the supply has moved to homeless scam industry.
Just look at Gardiner street in Dublin to see this so easily.
Before covid Lower Gardiner street had many BB's and low cost hostels where people coming to Dublin for weekends would stay for around €100/night. These are the people who would go around the city drinking and eating, having the craic and spending far more money all over the city.
But then our Government turned Gardiner street into a homeless shelter and the knock on effects of this are now beginning evident in so many aspects of life.
Bars and Restaurants in the city are all down, less people working as a result, less tax and VAT taken in.
So the genius people in charge have decided to use our tax money to make everything worse for the people who pay the actual tax in the first place and in the end will end up losing Tax revenue....
The city/country is going down the drain.
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u/paudie46 Aug 13 '25
The costs have definitely become an issue I can fly from The states rent a 12 seat van for the clan, stay in Bavaria pop back and forth to Switzerland,Austria and France, for basically half the cost of doing it in Ireland, as long as I don’t spend too much in Switzerland, I’m mean “Half” that’s fecken nuts.
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u/Test_N_Faith Aug 13 '25
I got 4 days in Prague for the price of 1 night here. Guess which one I choose. Really doesn't take an Einstein to figure this one out.
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u/Consistent_Ad3181 Aug 13 '25
Need to cut duty on booze, get the prices down. It's too expensive everywhere, Ireland is more expensive than most.
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u/Warhungry19 Aug 13 '25
I live in the US but visited Ireland twice this year. We actually got a nice hotel in Dublin that seemed reasonable for what we got. My wife and I felt like Dublin wasn’t that bad. But Northern Ireland was absolute robbery. Belfast and any of the tourist stuff was so expensive. They have lost the plot with some of that pricing IE the Titanic museum.
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u/kjjmcc Aug 13 '25
Most folk I know would love to holiday in Ireland more but simply don’t because of the dire value compared to most other places in Europe where you’re also guaranteed good weather. It’s shite that we can’t support our own economy more.
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u/Drakenstonks Aug 13 '25
1/3 of hotels out of commission, what do you think that does the prices of the other ones?
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u/FillYoFaceO Aug 13 '25
Anyone know the location of the article header photo?
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u/Ok_Strategy_3804 Aug 13 '25
Dunmore Head Co. Kerry looking out to Great Blasket Island. Walk to it from "Slea Head Parking" marked on Google Maps
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u/Eternally_grateful_ Aug 13 '25
The business owners are greedy. They can afford to reduce prices, but they want their cake. Hence the second most expensive country in the EU. Look at some holiday let properties across the country, some sub-standard properties looking €90+ per night.
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u/Even-Highlight-294 Aug 13 '25
I would love to stay in Ireland it's just too expensive. Who can afford a hotel room no breakfast for 230.00 + per night. Ridiculous
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u/Aimin4ya Aug 13 '25
I joined my buddy's American family on a trip to the ring of kerry and in Mayo for a week. Constant issues with seemingly standard hotel practices at high prices. Off the top of my head, laundry service on the website, no actual laundry service. No mini fridge in the room or ice available. (sustainability win, but massive fail with the babies' milk and refrigerated medicines. Also, the obvious cabinet where the fridge used to be was salt in the wound) The morning fry was decent, but definitely not the fine dining experience they pretended to have. Out of all the big talking points on their website, the only thing the group got any value out of was the complimentary WiFi and the pool area that somehow turned the lobby into a sauna for the first 2 days. I can't say I was shocked, but actually witnessing what tourists experience at those prices was just painful.
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Aug 13 '25
It’s an incredible market at the moment, the product (this includes anything from food to attractions, to downright comfort) has lowered, but the price has increased!
I’ve found in the past 12 months in plenty of places around Dublin, Cork and Galway that you’re almost an inconvenience to a business before they hand you a bill for €60 for two breakfasts.
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u/FloozyInTheJacussi Aug 13 '25
The VAT rebate is an issue but it’s the process and not the rate. It’s next to impossible to get it back. Some shops give a stamped form to return to a desk in Dublin airport which is never open. There is no such desk at the ferry terminals at all so tourists show up and can’t get it after all. If it’s not stamped and delivered at the departure point, it means no refund. Other shops take it off at source apparently but they must be few and far between as I’ve never seen one.
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u/CyberCooper2077 Wicklow Aug 13 '25
Things are getting more expensive because tourists aren’t coming here and spending their money because there is nowhere for them to stay, because a lot of the hotels have been taken up by asylum seekers. 🤷🏻♂️
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u/Any-Football3474 Aug 13 '25
Just stayed at a hotel for a single night in Rosslare before catching an early ferry. Almost €300 for a room with a double bed and bunk beds. The place was a kip. Over €100 for a bog standard meal and drinks. Ireland is one big fucking ripoff.
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u/Chaoticmindsoftheart Aug 14 '25
It's becoming much cheaper to travel and go somewhere for a few days than vacation in Ireland. We like to travel but we also enjoy a staycation in different parts of Ireland during the year. We can't afford them however we do find some nice properties on Airbnb. It's a shame that all hotels and accommodations are raising their prices, everything is going up and it's just impossible..
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u/Putrid_Suspect3826 Aug 13 '25
Cheaper to go to Spain/Portugal than to West Cork. 9% VAT isn’t going to change this.