The chairman of the Irish Tourist Industry Confederation has said prices here are continuing to rise faster than elsewhere in Europe.
Dick Bourke added that Ireland's reputation as an 'expensive destination' was becoming well established.
Referring to Ireland's reputation as a welcoming destination, Mr Bourke said the Irish product risks becoming less competitive as the number of Irish people employed in tourism continues to decline.
But he said non-Irish workers continued to make an enormous contribution to the sector.
In his address to the AGM of the confederation, Mr Bourke said Open Skies - which relaxed restrictions on airlines operating between Europe and the US - should be good for Irish tourism. But this depended on US airlines coming into Ireland, and if this did not happen, the result would be the transfer of US tourists from West to East.
His remarks came as official figures showed a fall in the number of trips made to Ireland in January. Overseas visitors made 437,000 visits in the month, down almost 4,000 on the same month last year. There were small drops in the numbers coming from Britain and North America, while the figure for continental Europe held up. But there was a 4.5% fall in visits from other areas.
Trips abroad by Irish residents were 548,400 in January, up 11% on a year earlier.
