Óna Máire Walsh

So we're a little bit more anxious about the year ahead.

And 2027 is the big unknown.

There's a lot of uncertainty in regard to that.

That's the most direct.

if you like, impact.

So, Emirates, Qatar.

Exactly.

So, they all obviously fly into Dublin and give valuable business to the Irish tourism economy.

It's worth, in a normal year, it's worth about 500 million euro tourism revenue comes either from the Middle East or via the Middle East.

And obviously, all that has been utterly kind of messed up.

So, how much of that has been lost or paused or deferred, we just don't know.

So,

There's the direct impact of the Middle East business, and then there's the more indirect business, which is things like the fuel surcharges, the consumer confidence abroad.

So it certainly hasn't been helpful.

Yeah, and hopefully they are because the domestic market is very important to Irish tourism.

But I think the thing we have to remember is that the domestic visitor is only worth about 25% of the overall Irish tourism economy.

So the bulk of the Irish tourism economy is made up of international visitation.

And the domestic market is important.

It helps the shoulder seasons and so on.

But Irish people will always, I think, jet off to guaranteed sunshine and, you know, see new places.