Tourism is a services industry, which relies heavily on labour, and Irish public policy operates on the basis of seeking to ensure that those in employment are paid fair wages. Our fiscal model also emphasises indirect as opposed to direct taxation. While both these approaches provide a strong economic development impetus, they can impact on consumption costs for the visitor.
The Tourism Agencies continue to monitor Ireland's competitiveness as a tourism destination. While Ireland is clearly not a low-cost destination, it does seem that Ireland is not perceived as an expensive destination to get to but that there are issues about the relative cost of some on-the-ground amenities.
In 2005, Tourism Ireland undertook a pilot project that focused on benchmarking Ireland's offering on-line against our key competitors in the top four markets (GB, USA, France and Germany) in relation to the cost, availability and choice of flights, hotels and car hire. Overall, it appears that Ireland, in the on-line arena, is very competitive in these sectors.
Fáilte Ireland's Visitor Attitude Survey shows that the area of value, price and good all-round value for money remains an important prerequisite for visitors when considering Ireland as their holiday destination, as does the availability of reasonably priced accommodation and competitively priced air and sea fares. It is important to remember that competitiveness is not just about price. It is about value for money and, if our tourism sector is to be competitive, that is what it must deliver. As in most industries, there is, no doubt, scope for efficiency gains and Fáilte Ireland has a range of programmes to help the industry in this area.