The Irish Tourism Industry Confederation's Tourism Dashboard is published in association with AIB and compares each month to the same month in 2019, the last normal year for the Irish tourism industry.
Today's figures show that arrivals to the country were 31% lower in the month when compared to the same, pre-pandemic month of 2019, but that is a smaller gap than had been seen earlier in the year.Hotel occupancy for March stood at 73%, the dashboard also showed today, while the latest jobs data from the CSO show that 26,000 fewer people are working in the tourism and hospitality industry.
Eoghan O’Mara Walsh, CEO of ITIC, said the March data shows the significant uphill climb facing Ireland's tourism and hospitality industry. Mr O'Mara Walsh warned that the war in Ukraine, inflation and labour shortages will put a handbrake on the sector's recovery.