A new “digital immigration” requirement to cross from the Republic into Northern Ireland will “contradict decades of messaging about tourism on the island of Ireland”, industry representatives have told the British Home Office.
The Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) scheme, which comes into force for European travellers on Wednesday, means visitors from countries that do not require short-stay visas to enter the UK must now pre-apply for electronic clearance.
While Irish citizens and legal residents are exempt, the Government and industry groups have raised serious concerns about how the system will work in practice, flagging its potential to discourage visitors to Ireland generally.
A recent ministerial briefing note at the Department of Enterprise described the lack of exemption for international tourists travelling from the Republic to Northern Ireland as “a matter of concern for the tourism industry, both North and South”.
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“Particular concern remains around seamless cross-Border travel on the island, with a majority of international visitors to Northern Ireland typically arriving via this jurisdiction,” it said.
“Requiring tourists to apply and purchase an ETA to travel to Northern Ireland [for £10] results in an additional layer of bureaucracy and complexity that may deter potential visitors from choosing the island of Ireland as a holiday destination.”
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Since January, visitors to the United Kingdom from countries outside of the European Union have needed two-year Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) visas before being allowed to land at UK airports.
However, nearly 70 per cent of Northern Ireland’s tourists land at airports in the Republic, usually Dublin and travel northwards, often on day-trips to the Titanic Centre in Belfast, or the Giant’s Causeway in Co Antrim.
The extension of the visa rules to cover EU visitors, excluding people from the Republic of Ireland, is particularly worrying since many Continental visitors travel with national ID cards, but passports are needed to apply for an ETA.
So far, industry figures warn that business has already been lost, with some Continental travellers, who were coming to Ireland for a short holiday, baulking at paying the £16-a-head fee for the visa.
Meanwhile, the Home Office has told Stormont politicians that there will be no checks along the Border, or afterwards to make sure that NI visitors have the paperwork. However, there are questions over insurance, for example, for tourists who travel without the necessary paperwork and then have an accident.
A number of US tour operators have already insisted that Northern Ireland is excluded from group visits that they are organising to Ireland this year because of the extra paperwork.
Former Sinn Féin Economy Minister Conor Murphy warned previously that the visa rules could have a devastating impact on Northern Irish tourism, and there are indications since January that visitor numbers to NI are down by 40 per cent. How much of this is explained by the ETA visa is so far unclear.
esdayThe real impact, however, will be faced from Wednesday, warns Joanne Stuart, who heads the Northern Ireland Tourism Alliance, which lobbied hard for an exemption for visitors arriving into Northern Ireland from the Republic on short breaks.
Numbers are already falling because of the ETA rules, however, she warned: “A French family group who were coming for five days to Northern Ireland in May cancelled, and the reason they gave was that a large number of them travel on ID cards, not passports.”
The new rules could prove particularly harmful to German tourist numbers since many of its citizens travel on national ID cards, not passports because the latter are expensive and bureaucratically difficult to get.
Several points of concern were raised between Irish industry and Government representatives during meetings with British Home Office officials late last year, and set out in documents accessed by The Irish Times through Freedom of Information.
“TI (Tourism Ireland) and ITOA (Inbound Tourism Operators Association of Ireland) were very robust in underlining that the ETA now contradicts decades of messaging about tourism on the island of Ireland,” a summary note from the Department of Foreign Affairs set out.
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“ITOA, in particular, noted that the international promotion of tourism on an all-island basis predates the GFA. They both argued that the language of communications is ultimately therefore critical.”
Several areas of concerns were set out during meetings last November, two months before the scheme was due to begin for non-European visitors including Americans. Key among them was the need for clear messaging to avoid confusion among those visiting the island.
It was explained that, for tourism purposes, Ireland was promoted as Ireland “and the UK doesn’t come into it”, a point accepted by the Home Office.
One of the meetings heard that implications for spontaneous “day-trippers” to Northern Ireland were a “real point of concern”.
“UK acknowledged challenges in identifying and reaching day-trippers and spontaneous travellers,” the DFA summary recorded. “Their starting point is likely to be engagement with car rental companies, taxis, rail and coach operators to seek embedded messaging on their website[s].”
“It would equally be difficult,” the notes recorded, “to make clear to a Dutch resident living in Donegal that he would required an ETA if he were flying home to Donegal from the Netherlands via Belfast.”
Questions regarding enforcement, liability, insurance cover, spontaneous and day trippers, and what might happen in cases where residents of the Republic were unable to prove their status in the event of being questioned by officials, were all raised.
“Strikingly, engagement with EU on plans for ETA roll-out has been notably limited,” the summary document said. “It was clear there are also no current plans for engagement with the diplomatic corps in Dublin, particularly in relation to communicating nuances of the ETA exemption secured for legal residents of Ireland.”
A Home Office official at the time said enforcement of the electronic clearance was not anticipated until the end of 2025 and that “leniency” had been built into the system roll-out.
Irish officials also pressed for further communication with freight groups.
