Home sweet holiday?

What's the deal with holidays in Ireland?

If you don't fancy spending €4 on four minutes of go-karting, a tenner on a child's chicken nugget dinner or 20 cent on a single marshmallow for your hot chocolate, then maybe you should consider taking your holidays somewhere other than Ireland this year.

While high prices and bad service are with us all year, it's only when we holiday at home - with little else to do but moan and look for a break in the clouds through rain-spattered windows - that it becomes really clear how hard it is to find good value.

The high cost of pretty much everything may explain why the first quarter of this year saw a dramatic decline in the number of people under the age of 50 holidaying at home compared with the same period last year. According to the Central Statistics Office (CSO), while domestic holiday numbers in the first quarter of this year are up 11 per cent on the same period last year, those in the 30-39 age bracket taking breaks at home fell 35 per cent, while there was a 15 per cent drop in people aged 40-50 holidaying at home.

Indications are that the figures for the second quarter will show this downward trend continuing. That is, however, not the full picture. Despite all the anecdotal evidence suggesting growing dissatisfaction with high costs, Ireland continues to outperform other northern European destinations in attracting visitors from overseas, and the domestic tourist spend in the first quarter actually grew by almost 40 per cent.

In the last 20 years, the number of visitors has almost quadrupled to eight million, and hotel occupancy stands at about 65 per cent, even though there has been a doubling of hotel rooms in the last decade.

ALL THOSE NEWLY-BUILThotels mean that good value can be found in accommodation, but bargains are next to impossible to find when eating out. Even those working in the tourist sector accept that the price of food and drink in Ireland is too high.

This summer, two adults and three children eating in an ordinary restaurant will have little change out of €120 for an evening meal - and that includes three rounds of sausages and chips and little or no alcohol. Spread that over a typical two-week break and the total cost of evening meals is close to €1,700. When accommodation, activities, lunches, snacks and petrol are included, a family of five will likely spend more than €4,000 without a single sun-kissed face to show for it.

Alan O'Donnell has just returned from two weeks in the south of France, not far from Monaco. Unsurprisingly, eating out was much, much better value than anything he would be able to find in Ireland. A typical evening meal for two adults and two children "in a genuinely lovely restaurant" cost €58.50. That paid for three courses for the adults, two half-portions of whatever the children wanted - "not just chicken nuggets and chips" - a bottle of wine, a bottle of water, two coffees and a brandy.

"How does this compare with Galway during the races for example? I'm pretty sure you will not find even one restaurant that will be within 20 per cent of the French prices." Twenty per cent? PriceWatch can't imagine you'd find a restaurant in Galway that would come within 100 per cent of that total.

Journalist Cian McCormack is becoming a professional tourist. For the last two years he has gone on the road for Morning Irelandas the silly season begins, travelling between the headlands of Malin and Mizen, stopping off along the way to speak to tourists and service providers.

He says good value accommodation can be found in Ireland, but not easily. "I was gone for two weeks and I reckon it cost close to €900 a week. That was just for evening meals and B&Bs and hotels." He struggled to find nice, cheap food - "a good value steak is pretty rare", he says - but believes that, despite the high prices and bad weather, holidaying at home is worth considering.

"Everyone I spoke to seemed to think that a good holiday can be had in Ireland. But it is too expensive and the industry as a whole needs to look at how it treats its customers and potential customers."

Eamon McKeon of the Irish Tourist Industry Confederation (ITIC) does just that. Each year ITIC surveys more than 10,000 holidaymakers, and come the winter it pores over the data looking for trends that might set alarm bells ringing.

For now, the bells are relatively quiet. He accepts that Ireland is expensive and that negative comments about high prices feature in the ITIC's visitor surveys, but he also says that just 4 per cent of people polled said their holiday did not match their expectations, with most citing high prices as the reason.

MCKEON POINTS OUTthat while even 4 per cent is regrettable, it is "hardly a catastrophe". He says that ITIC data shows that 80 per cent of overseas visitors would unreservedly recommend Ireland, while the rest would recommend the country with some reservations, the main one being the cost of drink and eating out.

"The industry is painfully aware that Ireland is no longer an inexpensive destination. Many of the reasons for that are outside the control of our sector, such as the cost of doing business, and in particular the high cost of many of our major inputs, such as labour and energy," he says.

"I will never buy The Irish Times again for 50p, any more than you and I will ever get a coffee and a fresh scone in Grafton Street for €2. We just must move on with the quality game.

"The truth of the matter is that you can be expensive and successful. You just have to be very good, and keep getting better. All the signs are that Irish tourism is successful and is getting better, despite this year's weather so far. It's about value rather than price."