Eoghan Corry Talks Travel – March 2025
The impact of Trumps tariffs, Ireland’s inbound tourism figures, cruising is booming and Morocco is having a moment – Eoghan Corry has Ireland’s latest travel news.
How reliable are Ireland’s inbound tourism figures? Will Canadians swap the US for Ireland this summer? Things are hotting up in the cruise industry, and is Morocco Ireland’s answer to Albania? Eoghan Corry has this months top talking points.
Summer season, no new routes
Normally the summer aviation season would bring a dozen or so new routes to our airports. Not so 2025. Ryanair’s route to Rabat, the seriously underserved capital of Morocco, was the only addition to Dublin’s spider map.
Michael O’Leary says Morocco is the new Tirana for 2025 for his airline, and to expect more action. The route opens access to beach resorts in Salé and Kenitra to the north of Rabat as well as Casablanca to the south, a city that is smellier and somewhat move over-rated than the old movie would suggest (off all the cities in all the world chosen by Hollywood).
Ships with everything
Not to be outdone in the shiny new cruise ship game, Norwegian Cruise Line hosted 180 Irish travel agents on the launch of Norwegian Aqua in Southampton. NCL has been trailing a distant fourth in the cruise business in Ireland, and this was a major attempt to reset the dial.
Royal Caribbean saw sales boosted massively last year with the launch of Icon of the Seas. MSC have a show of their own coming with the launch of MSC World America in May. NCL is hopeful of something similar.
How many tourists?
What is going on with the inbound visitor numbers issued by the Central Statistics Office? Apparently we have lost two million tourists since the pandemic. Even worse, the abysmal figures for January and February 2024 have been surpassed by even more abysmal figures for 2025, down 25% and 30%, which equates to 43% if you compare it to pre-pandemic.
March will tell if the trend is persistent, as tourist numbers traditionally grow by 30% that month. All of the major markets are down, Britain by 24.4%, Germany by 18.7%, France by 29.2% and high-spending USA by 35% since last year (87.8% since pre-pandemic).
The CSO changed their methodology since pre-pandemic, so how reliable are Ireland’s inbound tourism figures? We can easily measure how many come and go on and off our island. How many were inbound tourists and how many were outbound holiday makers was determined by traditional surveys. Questionaires were not taken before 9am up to five years ago. Of people coming and going, the old stats showed 44% to 54% inbound. Newer data shows the inbound proportion is more likely 34% and may always have been that low.
Flights and prices 2025
Michael O’Leary predicts that ticket prices will rise about 6% for the summer of 2025, having fallen by 4% in the summer of 2024, as he plays cat in the annual cat and mouse game between airline and consumer. The mouse won.
County Antrim’s year
The last time the British Open came to county Antrim there was a dire shortage of hotel beds. Things have changed. Three hotels are opening in Portrush for this year’s return, including the plush Dunluce Lodge and the Marcus, as well as a fast growing portfolio of hotels opening in Belfast.
Hilton has chosen Belfast for its first Tempo by Hilton hotel outside the USA. Hilton signed another franchise agreement for 131-room DoubleTree opposite Belfast city hall and planning permission has been granted for a 102-bed hotel on the site of the Scottish Mutual Building.
Cruise prices up – but there is good news
Ireland’s travel trade has gone through a bit of a boom in the past two years, with the rise of all inclusive, the return of traditional package holidays to new destinations, such as the four new routes TUI are announcing this year. It is the rise of Cruise business that has brought the biggest boost of all.
Pre-pandemic there were two major players in the Irish Cruise market, Royal Caribbean and MSC. This year NCL has entered the chase, and Celebrity Cruises who dominate the premium end of the market are also seeing some competition. All this has meant a lively round of special offers and incentives such as drinks packages. Cruise companies are enjoying record profits (which means record prices for the customer), especially from ancillary revenue such as the private islands they are opening in the Caribbean.
More competition from cruise line seriously entering the Irish market is good for consumers and good for the trade.
Read: 20 top tips for first time cruise holidays
Crowded menu
It is great to see so many new names and unexpected winners in the Restaurants Association of Ireland round of the provinces for its annual awards for 2025. There are plenty of seats at the winner’s table, 18 categories in each county, a total of 558 (the best in Dublin are shortlisted for the overall ceremony on Monday 19th May) and 198 in Leinster alone.
This year so far unexpected cherries went to enterprises such as Alumni Kitchen in Kildare, Everett’s Restaurant
in Waterford, Homestead Cottage in Doolin, Mulcahy’s in Kenmare, Sanjay’s Kitchen in Birr, Thyme Restaurant in Athlone and Zucchini’s in Navan.
The recent Good Food Ireland conference has heard that no aspect of Irish Tourism has matched the progress made over the past 20 years by our food producers, and celebrity chefs much as Scandinavia moved their reputation from meatballs to Michelin star in less than five years.
Ireland’s is traditionally famous for producing food rather than serving it. We have made most of the way on that journey, now we need to tell more people about it.
Trumps Tariffs
The American inbound travel industry is recoiling in horror from the collateral damage from by the created chaos that is the trademark of the Trump presidency. A cheerful forecast, issued in January, of 6% growth in America’s inbound tourist market this year, has been replaced by a prediction of 6% decline. This is not spread evenly across all markets.
Interest in travel form Europe and Ireland is unaffected, with the caveat that neither has returned to pre pandemic levels, back to 95% in the case of Ireland. With 22 trans-Atlantic routes, Aer Lingus will be especially vigilant about any downturn in bookings in either direction. As Lynne Embleton pondered recently at the Destinations Leaders Forum, an airline can lose a lot of money very quickly on the trans-Atlantic.
On the upside, one of the few (only) growing markets into Ireland in the early-year statistics is Canada. Canadians need somewhere else to go as they cancel those American bookings. And for our outbound holiday makers chasing the mouse and more, those Florida cancellations from Canada’s winter business need to be filled.
Eoghan Corry is Ireland’s leading travel commentator and aviation specialist in Ireland, as well as being a historian, author and broadcaster. He has extensively travelled as a travel journalist and has been a speaker and moderator at tourism and aviation conferences including the World Tourism Forum, Tourism Ireland and Thailand Tourism.
