Hotels in Kerry and the south-west are experiencing cancellations since the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the UK and Northern Ireland, with tourism spokespersons saying the threat could not have come at a worse time at the start of the tourist season.
Hotels in the Killarney region, where tourism accounts for an estimated £150 million per year, have indicated to staff they may ask them to take holidays over the next two weeks.
"This is an abnormal request this time of year," Mr Conor Hennigan, manager of the Great Southern Hotel in Killarney said. "A lot of people are very worried. The impact for Killarney is colossal," Mr Hennigan said.
A 300-delegate SIPTU women's conference at the hotel was cancelled this weekend, following the sealing off of a farm in Castleisland. The hotel was left with just 16 guests on Saturday, all of them Irish, on what should have been an extremely busy weekend.
The timing of the foot-and-mouth crisis is disastrous from a tourism point of view, with German as well as American tour operators becoming anxious, according to the Tourist Office in Killarney.
The decision to cancel the Dublin St Patrick's Day parade last Thursday has also come in for widespread criticism. It may have been premature - and has sent out the "all the wrong signals abroad", commentators say.
"The message to tourists is confusing - American visitors now think we actually have foot-and-mouth," one tourist spokesperson in Killarney said.
St Patrick's Day is the traditional start to Kerry's multi-million pound tourist industry.
There are over 3 million tourists to the south-west region, where almost £600 million was earned in 1999.
The effects of the cancellation of the parade in Dublin were being felt throughout the region this weekend with holiday cancellations for the week of the 17th coming from the hugely important US market.
"The Dublin St Patrick's Day parade is bigger in the US than in Ireland," Mr Hennigan said. In the American mind they think cancelling the parade means matters here are horrendous. The message that this was a precautionary move should have been stressed, he said.