Ireland's hotel industry is being squeezed by lost bookings in the current foot-and-mouth alert and faces huge job losses if the scare persists through the tourist season, a spokesman said today.
"There are 60,000 employed in hotels (and) you could be talking of 20,000 job losses if this scare were to continue, chief executive of the Irish Hotels Federation Mr John Power said.
"There have been cancellations all over the country, said Power, whose group has 900 members nationwide. This had resulted in substantial losses of revenue.
"Every hotel in the country had been hit", he said, with up to 500 events, conferences, or business meetings cancellations.
"We are totally in support of the efforts to keep food-and-mouth disease out of the country. That has to be supported. But the message we are trying to get across is that this is a sector that is suffering very badly", he said.
Tourism is worth around £4 billion annually and employs 150,000 people.