Ireland needs more hotel accommodations in order to keep up with the demand from the United States.
Such comments came from the interim chief executive of Tourism Ireland, Siobhán McManamy, while she added that the country could certainly do more with hotel accommodation, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
Her comments, according to the RTE report, came following the launch of a new route between Dublin and Cleveland, Ohio, by Aer Lingus, thus accounting for the first new transatlantic service since 2019, before the spread of the Coronavirus.
“The flights are back to about 102 per cent. Where we are this July will be just ahead of where we were in 2019, but we are down to between 20 and 30 per cent on accommodation in the peak summer months,” she pointed out.
According to McManamy, extending the tourist season for the US market could further help with the capacity issue.
“Certainly, the industry would tell us there is a strong February, March, April from the market this year,” she pointed out.
McManamy emphasized that it has been documented that in some counties, more accommodations had been offered for humanitarian purposes.
In addition, she added that the market was seeing other shortages, also taking into account chauffeur-driven cars.
McManamy stressed that travellers from the US make up 27 per cent of spend in Ireland, or nearly twice the spending compared to visitors from the United Kingdom, who might be more likely to stay short-term or with family and friends.
Earlier this month, authorities in Ireland reported that as a result of hotel bed shortages in this country that have been contracted to the State in order to host refugees, a total of 10,000 tourism jobs had been displaced.
Such estimations were introduced through the recent analysis of the government. A report in the Irish Times noted that based on the statistics given to Ministers, a total of 20 towns in Ireland showed that the most notable impact was noted in famous travel destinations, also taking into account Killarney, in which the effect of revenue to April this year was estimated at more than €100 million with over 2,700 jobs displaced.
Previously, the Prime Minister of Ireland, Leo Varadkar, said that the country is more than 250,000 homes short of the number after it needs to accommodate a significant number of refugees and asylum seekers, therefore leading to homelessness.