George Lawlor on €1bn Tourism Revenue Drop, Seeks Answers

Minister, I want to ask you, in light of the recently calculated €1 billion fall in tourism revenue year on year, the factors that your department have identified as driving this decline, the immediate actions that you intend to take to stabilise the sector and to prevent further losses, and if you will make a statement on the matter. Thank you, Chair Locke, and I thank Deputy Lawler for this very important question. And I acknowledge the Deputy's observations on revenue, the CSO statistics, indicate a more optimistic picture for 2025. Overall tourism revenue in 2025 remains strong, albeit at a slightly lower level than the exceptional high levels reached in 2024, but on par with 2023. Encouragingly, the last Central Statistics Office data shows a return to growth in overseas visitor numbers and expenditure towards the end of this year. The CSO reports in November 2025, overseas visitors spent €347 million on trips, excluding fares. This represents a 10% increase when compared with November 2024, and a rise of 4% when compared with 2023. Some 460,300 foreign visitors completed a trip to Ireland in November 2025, which is an increase of 13% when compared to the same month in 2024, and up 3% in 2023. This is the fourth consecutive month of 2025 to show growth in visitor numbers compared to 2024, which is very encouraging after what was a slow start. I recognise that the tourism sector continues to face challenges, including competitive pressures, macroeconomic uncertainty, and the need to strengthen connectivity. As Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, I am focused on ensuring the recent momentum is sustained, addressing these challenges while supporting long-term resilience and productivity. It is a key priority of my department that sits firmly with the wider enterprise and employment agenda. In November 2025, the department and myself published our National Tourism Policy Statement, a new era for Irish tourism. The five-year strategy provides a clear framework to 2031 to grow our revenue, grow our visitor numbers, and critically career pathways within the sector. Deputy. Thank you, Minister, for your response. Someone's figures aren't adding up. There has been a clash, as you know. I think the CSO were saying one figure, and the industry was saying another. But the indications are that foreign spending slumped by almost 1 billion euro, total international visitors down year on year by some 13%. And as you can imagine, in an industry that's worth 8.9 billion to the economy, but I think in and around 200,000 people employed directly and indirectly in the business. That's a shocking statistic. I appreciate what you're saying, that there appears to be some pickup. And whilst North America did show some growth, markets like Britain, France and Germany surprisingly appear to have declined. You would possibly suggest that geopolitical activity may have had some influence on some of the markets. But for North America to show growth while the others are declining is quite surprising indeed, and I think requires some investigation. You are quite right in relation to the CSO earlier on in the year, but I was making the point that it has recovered significantly over the last four months. So we have taken immediate action. We've brought forward a plan that really will grow the sector significantly over the next five years. I'm going to work on extending the season, because 50% of visitors come from June to September. We're trying to bring it from St Bridges Day out to Halloween, which will be a significant asset. We're also looking at an all-Ireland culinary strategy, which will assist the growth of the food and beverage sector. And critically, we're going to have 12% more seats coming into Ireland through our air carriers this winter. If you look at the markets you've mentioned, we'll have 13% more in Germany, 8% more in France, 7% more in the UK. The previous winter, we had 9% less seats in total, and that's been a big challenge for the sector. So working with our SMEs, there's 46,000 SMEs that deliver our tourism product, that authentic product. They are now in the heart of my department, and that's why policy has changed. I have a complete gear change with my two ministers in tourism policy, and we're working to support SMEs, extend the season, work on accommodation providers. We have 11,500 accommodation beds now in construction, 8,600 in Dublin, moving away from state contracts with private accommodation, hotel accommodation, which is important as well. I think that would be very important for the sector. Deputy. Thank you, Minister, and I welcome some of the initiatives that you have announced. You know, I think there are certainly markets that we can work on. I've given the example of Savannah in Georgia, before a number of ministers have visited Savannah as part of the St. Patrick's Day connections. And Savannah has huge Irish connections, huge Irish connections. In fact, in the city of Savannah, which has 170,000 of a population, last year they had 17 million visitors. If you consider that Australia in total had about 10, this is a vast market, and something that I think we should tap in. There's no direct flight to Savannah. I flew there a number of times to celebrate with the local people because of the strong Wexford connections. And it took me 24 hours to get to Savannah, despite the massive connections that we have with that part of North America, Southeast Georgia. It is something that we really, really need to tap into and work with, and I think we will reap the rewards, and the dividends will come back to Ireland, Inc. Thank you, Deputy. Minister, to conclude. Thank you, Cairlach. And Deputy, the order raises a very valid point there. It is a very important destination for us. We have 21 gateway hubs with the U.S. now, and we are keen on expanding those. I was in Savannah and Atlanta for a St. Patrick's Day mission a couple of years ago, and Delta really raised with me they want to put new routes into Ireland, but the cap at that point in time precluded them from doing that. So we need to resolve the airport cap this year. That's going to be critically important, and also grow those routes. And I have specifically the strategic air activation scheme with Tourism Ireland that could work for Savannah, which would be very important to try and get direct flights in. Absolutely aware of the tertiary education linkage with Wexford, the very strong linkages there with the great work that's going on on the ground in Wexford and also Murd in Savannah, and the enthusiasm there that there is incredible, and so many business leaders on both sides of the Atlantic working hand in love. So I'll be very happy to work with you on that and try and get that connectivity, because it is very important for a marketplace for Ireland. And also, it is two-way bilateral relations that benefit on both sides, as we can see from tertiary education and other areas. Thank you, Minister.