A week before Christmas, after a disastrous year, Tourism Ireland set out its strategy for 2021. The agency, which markets the island of Ireland internationally, set St Patrick’s Day as the possible launch date for a major campaign to reboot the tourism industry in Ireland. The Green Button campaign would include an ambitious new online promotional film with the clear message to visitors to book their holidays now.
Within 10 days that strategy had unravelled. With case numbers rising fast, any hopes of an early recovery quickly disappeared. Besides, filming was meant to happen in January – that too had to be abandoned as Level 5 restrictions were imposed.
“When we set out our stall [on December 16th] we were hopeful of a kick-start around St Patrick’s Day with some momentum in the second quarter,” says Tourism Ireland chief executive Niall Gibbons.
“But now with a third wave, we will not see any recovery in the first half of the year. But we are still hopeful of some recovery it the second half of 2021 driven by the vaccine rollout.”
This week’s announcements of further severe restrictions will further reduce international travel into Ireland and across the Border. And this in the sector that has been pummelled more severely than any other.
With Level 5 lockdown set to continue until March 5th, there is little prospect of the tourism and hospitality industries reopening fully until late in the year.
Silver linings
Representatives of the sector were this week looking for silver linings. These included the availability of vaccines, falling case numbers that will hopefully allow a gradual reopening of business and more internal travel, and safe new systems, including a “digital vaccination passport” that will allow people to fly again.
“There’s no way to describe the decimation of last year,” says Gibbons. “We had 11.3 million visitors to the island in 2019. That was worth €5.8 billion and supported 325,000 jobs. We estimated there was a fall of 80 per cent last year.”
For Gibbons, vaccination is the key. He thinks it will allow some movement later in the year. Tourism Ireland has continued marketing research, maintaining links with airlines and supporting virtual industry events. There is huge “pent-up demand for international travel”, says Gibbons, and people from Ireland’s top markets (including the UK and US) want to return here.
For the past 10 months, air traffic has fallen to a trickle. Simon McNamara, UK and Ireland country manager of the International Air Transport Association, says the new restrictions here are similar to other European countries. He wants the Government to plan for what happens next.
“We are calling for a coherent plan to come out of this situation. There is tremendous uncertainty and there are many thousands of jobs in Ireland depending on the aviation industry. What these people need urgently is a clear pathway.”
McNamara accepts it is impossible to predict outbreaks, especially with new variants, but he says an indicative timeline is necessary.
The other prerequisite, he says, is a system where those who have been vaccinated can show the proof that they are safe to travel. McNamara says his association has proposed a digital passport that can be linked to electronic passenger information, so that border control will know the passenger has been vaccinated.
Clear roadmap
Hotels endured a 60 per cent drop in business last year, with Dublin hotels faring worse, as 83 per cent of guests in the capital arrive from abroad. Elaina Fitzgerald, president of the Irish Hotels Federation, says a clear roadmap is needed for 2021 and work on it must begin now.
“That is the key to unlocking it all,” she says. “At what percentage of the vaccination programme can we begin to set down dates for reopening? Remember even under Level 3 there is no intercounty travel. Intercounty travel is the difference between hotels being partly sustainable and being completely unsustainable.”
Adrian Cummins, chief executive of the Restaurants Association of Ireland, also emphasises the need for a plan for the entire sector. His industry does not expect even partial reopening until after Easter. “We need line and sight as to what the summer is going to look like. It is too early to discuss reopening as it can’t happen until it is safe. We need more supports now, and when we get as far as a point where it’s possible, we need a clear roadmap.”
Pádraig Cribben of the Vintners’ Federation of Ireland has said it is too difficult to make any predictions right now but Irish pubs are now in a battle for survival.
“There is a significant challenge facing us on the future of our pubs when this pandemic does pass.”
