New figures released by the CSO show the number of tourists visiting Ireland plunged by 30% last month compared with the same month last year.

Industry chiefs are saying that Ireland may be heading towards a crisis point.

Travel and aviation journalist at TravelExtra.ie Eoghan Corry told The Anton Savage Show that it is hard to tell what exactly is causing the downturn.

“The figures are not pretty; 30% down year-on-year - and that’s 43% from pre-pandemic,” he said.

“Now, if you square that off with the airport numbers, the Dublin passenger cap has impacted Dublin.

"But really it was flat, it didn’t come down, the number didn’t come down by anything that resembles that.

“So, it does look like there’s an awful lot of other factors.”

Mr Corry said he would expect Belfast airport to have seen about a six per cent growth out of diversions from Dublin.

Terminal 1 at Dublin Airport, Alamy

He said that while all markets have dropped since the COVID-19 pandemic, the fall in America’s stock market is particularly concerning.

“America is down by 35% [year-on-year], and 88% since pre-pandemic,” he said.

“Germany is down 18% and France is down 29%, but America is the big spender; they saved our last two summers.”

According to Mr Corry, if this loss of inbound visitors continues into the summer, we may see less tourists come to the country than we did in 2021, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

'Major seismic shift'

He warned that tourism trends could be undergoing a “major seismic shift” and that Ireland is falling out of favour.

“Places go out of fashion, when your mammy and daddy were looking at places to go long ago, they would have been, you know, Sitges in Spain would have been a big choice for the Irish,” he said.

“Nobody goes there now at the risk of sounding like Yogi Berra; places go in-and-out of fashion very quickly.

“For a few years we were riding high on [the success of] cinemas with Star Wars and television with Game of Thrones – now it tends to be Emily in Paris and White Lotus in Thailand.

“So, it could be a major seismic shift in the way people perceive Ireland abroad and pick their holidays might be changing.”

Mr Corry said the past two months have rattled everyone involved in the hospitality and tourism industry “to the core”.

Main image: Tourists in colorful jackets gathering around their tour guide in the centre of Killarney. (Contributor: Ognyan Trifonov / Alamy Stock Photo)