Soaring business costs and reduced tourism accommodation supply meant that the key tourism month did not perform as strongly as hoped in September.
The Irish Tourism Industry Confederation's latest monthly tourism dashboard shows that 582,100 international visitors came to Ireland in September, lower than had been expected.
205,900 of these visitors came from Great Britain, 140,200 from North America, 197,400 from Continental Europe, and 38,600 from the Rest of the World.
The ITIC noted that North American visitors were the highest spending market and accounted for €329m spend in September.
Eoghan O'Mara Walsh, CEO of the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation, said that September data finishes out the important third quarter for the Irish tourism industry and it is apparent that tourism's recovery is sluggish.
"Certain markets such as the USA are performing well but European markets and indeed domestic tourism is soft," Mr O'Mara Walsh said.
"Airports may be busy but numbers are inflated by Irish people travelling abroad and hotel occupancy levels are inflated by Government contracts for humanitarian purposes. The actual number of tourists in the country is well shy of where it was and where it needs to be," he stated.
The ITIC said that although the CSO's new methodology of collecting airport data means that direct comparisons with 2019 are difficult to make, there was enough evidence "to suggest that tourism's recovery to pre-pandemic levels is much slower than hoped".
ITIC Chairperson Elaina Fitzgerald Kane stressed that Government was over-reliant on the tourism sector to house refugees and asylum seekers and a more balanced approach was needed including exploring all forms of accommodation.
"Feedback from our members is that margins are very tight with soaring costs of business. There is a palpable fear that without appropriate pro-tourism policies the industry will be under real pressure next year," she stated.
ITIC's Tourism Dashboard is published in association with AIB and, using a variety of data sources including the CSO, identifies tourism numbers by key source market.
