The Department of Tourism has been inundated with complaints from tourists and members of the public about the high cost of going on holiday in Ireland.
One family wrote about how they were going to have to cancel a planned fifth trip to Ireland after being quoted $2,000 Canadian dollars for car rental.
They had already paid a deposit for accommodation and said they now faced the cost of losing their flights as well because their holiday would not be viable without a car.
In an email to Tourism Minister Catherine Martin, they wrote: "I work in health care, I have been working for over two years during Covid on the front line in a blood lab, and was really looking forward to resuming travel, to our favourite place on earth, Ireland".
"This financial loss is huge, but the spiritual loss is even greater when people can no longer take the trips they love," they added.
Another told of how the cost of renting a car for a four-day trip had more than trebled compared to a trip they had taken in 2019.
They explained how their daughter was also travelling and was being charged €770 for car hire, two and a half times what it would have cost at the same time in London.
"With car hire charges the way they are, it doesn't take a genius to work out that if nothing is done at Government level then there will be fewer tourists and the economy will suffer," they said.
One Irish hotel wrote to Minister Martin to say they were seeing bookings being cancelled because visitors simply could not afford car hire costs.
They said they had tried to help one person get car rental for a few days, for which they were quoted €1,200.
The hotelier said this visitor had checked out early and travelled to Dublin instead where they could get around without a vehicle.
Another said action should be taken on the car hire industry to see if it was "acting uncompetitively" pointing out there were nearly 7,400 second-hand cars - registered for either 2021 or 2022 - available for sale on advertising websites.
"Bad press has a habit of spreading far more effectively than so called good news," they wrote. "The tourism industry here is already a dubious prospect on account of high hotel and restaurant costs."
One German family with a holiday home in Co Cork said they would be travelling to their holiday home in France instead because of car rental costs.
"The prices for rentals have risen at least four times. Holidays in Ireland are no longer affordable. I hope this will change soon and everything will return to normal," they wrote.
Another wrote about returning to Ireland to bury their mother and how they were being quoted extortionate costs for hiring a vehicle.
They said the average price being quoted was €2,000 per day, which in America they said would be considered "price gouging and illegal".
Their email added: "I myself am extremely disappointed in a country I considered myself proud to have grown up in and one that I am also a dual citizen of."
One Swedish visitor said between hotel prices of €250 a night in Dublin, and a further €250 per day for a car – they could not afford a visit.
"Although I would prefer to spend my holiday in Ireland [and] love Ireland!" they wrote. "Can this unacceptable situation change?"
Complaints were also received about "price gouging hotels" with one saying they could stay in a private suite in Las Vegas for the cost of a moderate hotel in Cork.
There were also emails from Irish people saying they intended holidaying abroad instead of staycationing due to high costs.
The Department of Tourism said they had received more than 100 such representations over the summer months and under FOI agreed to release a representative sample of more than 20.
A spokesman for the Department said: "It is clear that tourism businesses as well as many other sectors are facing cost inflation and other economic stresses including rising energy costs and increased wages in a competitive recruitment market".
"These are all factors that will find their way through to consumer prices. It is important that a balance is struck and for the industry to maintain the value for money proposition for Irish Tourism in the longer-term," he said.
"Businesses need to be able to make a sustainable trading margin but must pay attention to their pricing and how they can deliver added value. Businesses should consider both their pricing levels and the value added so that they can continue to attract customers and attract them back again and again," he added.
Reporting by Ken Foxe
