Madam, - Having returned recently from a seven-week trip through France, Italy and Central Europe, I feel qualified to comment on the perception that Ireland is an expensive destination for tourists.
Much of the debate seems to be based on comparisons between Ireland and the Balkan and Mediterranean regions. This is hardly fair. Average incomes, commercial regulation and levels of competition in places such as the Costa Blanca in Spain and the Greek Islands are not comparable with those in Ireland, particularly when prices in Dublin city centre are included in the comparison.
The Irish tourism product is more closely aligned with regions such as the Dordogne in France or Tuscany in Italy, where incomes are comparable and where tourists are prepared to pay higher prices for quality and value. Analysis of prices in these regions presents a very different picture.
For instance, I paid €2 an hour to park in San Gimignano in Tuscany, a town the size of Lahinch, and €3.20 for a cup of coffee in a cafe in St Emilion in the Dordogne. Further afield, I paid €12.50 for admittance to the Sealife Aquarium in St Malo in Brittany, €24 to pitch a small tent in a campsite on the Levantine Coast of Italy, €1.10 for a litre of diesel in Switzerland, and a whopping €28.00 to have 24 photographs developed in Austria.
My overall perception of prices on the European mainland was that they were high and that levels of service and quality of product I received in return were not always what I was used to. I certainly did not feel I was being ripped off at home, particularly when my experience of tourism in countries such as France and Germany made me realise that Ireland's famed hospitality is a reality and not just the product of Bord Fáilte advertising campaigns.
Commentators who perpetuate the "Expensive Ireland" myth should remember that the Irish tourist industry carries enormous economic responsibility in the face of serious competitive disadvantages. In the absence of valid analysis based on price comparisons made with like markets, it deserves our full and unqualified support. - Your etc.,
GARRETH McDAID,
St Raphael's Manor,
Celbridge,
Co Kildare.