Visitor numbers to Irish attractions hit by cost of living and global uncertainty

Many of Ireland’s most popular tourist attractions and experiences were hit with a “perfect storm” that battered visitor numbers last year, new figures from the umbrella group representing the sector say.

The cost of living crisis, a post-pandemic hangover, geopolitical uncertainty and the war in Ukraine were among the reasons for visitor numbers declining by more than 40 per cent in 2022 compared to 2019, suggested the Association of Visitor Experiences and Attractions (AVEA).

It put visitor numbers in 2022 at 58 per cent of 2019 figures based on its most recent industry survey and said early results from 2023 suggested many parts of the country were still struggling to reach pre-pandemic levels.

About 13.3 million people went to an Irish visitor experience or attraction during 2022 compared with just 4.3 million visitors recorded for 2021 and 22.9 million in 2019.

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The chief executive of AVEA Catherine Flanagan said the jump in visitors between 2021 and 2022 was evidence of a recovery.

However, she pointed out that the industry “has been hit with a variety of challenges and while we see the pandemic as somewhat in the rear-view mirror, it is the new challenges of the Ukrainian war in early 2022 coupled with the economic challenges, geopolitical uncertainty impacting travel confidence, the rise in the cost of living and indeed the continued impact of Brexit”.

She suggested that the “confluence of these challenges has created almost the ‘perfect storm’ for what is Ireland’s largest regional employment sector, with one in ten people around the country working in the tourism industry.”

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She said that interim data for 2023 indicates that more than half of visitor attractions report their year-to-year visitor numbers as having not yet returned to 2019 levels.

“This is true of all markets, with 51 per cent of AVEA members reporting that their domestic visitor numbers are down, 61 per cent are reporting a decline in visitors from Northern Ireland and 59 per cent are reporting a decline in overseas visitors when compared to 2019.”

She said some attractions, particularly those with free admission and those located in Dublin and other tourism hotspots, saw year-on-year growth but “the greatest challenge has been for those located regionally and rurally. The survey details that just 29 per cent of AVEA attractions in Dublin earn less than €1m, whereas 49 per cent of attractions outside Dublin fall into this category. At the other end of the scale, 36 per cent of Dublin-based attractions earn more than €2.5m compared to 26 per cent of those outside Dublin.”