Opinion

Newton Emerson: Holidaying in Ireland this year might ease plight of beleaguered tourist industry

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson writes a twice-weekly column for The Irish News and is a regular commentator on current affairs on radio and television.

Police officers stopping vehicles between Portrush and Portstewart to check if people are making only essential journeys
Police officers stopping vehicles between Portrush and Portstewart to check if people are making only essential journeys Police officers stopping vehicles between Portrush and Portstewart to check if people are making only essential journeys

Northern Ireland is a net holiday importer: we spend far more time and money abroad than tourists from abroad spend here.

As a rough guide, we get one million tourists a year, almost all on short breaks, while we take three times as many long and short breaks outside Northern Ireland.

Even the Republic, with its far larger tourism sector, runs a holiday deficit. Last year it received 5.2 million foreign tourists while its citizens took 5.7 million foreign holidays.

If overseas travel will shut down this summer due to coronavirus, as appears likely, there could be millions more holiday-makers sloshing around the island of Ireland than would otherwise be the case.

The whole of Ireland could receive a further boost from Britain if people there are deterred from going further afield.

The UK government intends to introduce the same 14-day isolation period for inbound travellers already required in the Republic, including citizens returning from abroad. Both countries indicate these measures could last for months and will be coordinated under the Common Travel Area. One effect might be to trap all British and Irish citizens inside a common holiday area.

Northern Ireland would particularly stand to gain if it could tempt more southerners north. Visitors from the Republic make up only 10 per cent of our ‘proper’ tourists - that is, people staying more than a day for purely leisure purposes. The cancellation of the Twelfth of July can only help.

Admittedly, it is desperate to compare all these numbers and look for the positive.

Domestic and foreign holidays are different industries, where demand for the former cannot simply replace demand for the latter. No amount of extra ice-cream purchased in Newcastle is going to benefit Belfast City Airport, for example.

However, there is enough of an overlap to see many hospitality businesses through this summer, which might be enough to see them through this crisis.

If damage to international travel is more permanent, we may all need to adjust to holidaying closer to home.

As a child of the 1970s I cannot be alone in feeling instinctively well-disposed to the idea. A majority of people over 40 in the UK who had childhood holidays did not go abroad. We formed our nostalgic memories on the nearest beach and we are the age group making the spending decisions today.

In my mind’s eye, a family holiday still means the perfect summer of 1976 at Cranfield caravan park, Co Down. In my teens we went to Portrush, where there was more to do on cloudy days. Or was it just Barry’s and the Lion Park?

Recollections are hazy and no doubt fonder for it.

Sunshine and attractions were not the decisive difference between then and now, as I realise whenever I return to these places. It was the fact many families stayed in Northern Ireland for their annual holiday that caused the crowded liveliness I think I remember and which might make a one-off reappearance this year.

I also cannot be the only parent my age who has thought of recreating their childhood holidays - and avoiding a flight with children - only to discover the tourism economy no longer serves that purpose.

Caravan sites have become sterile gated communities, where renting is not allowed.

Portrush has avoided a classic seaside resort death but its guesthouses have been converted into serviced apartments, which even in a normal year are in short supply.

Although domestic tourists still slightly outnumber overseas tourists in Northern Ireland, they only spend a third as much as few are on their ‘main holiday’.

On top of all this mismatched demand is uncertainty over what will be permitted this summer. Accommodation and attractions might reopen but at greatly reduced capacity. Criteria for relaxing the lockdown and social distancing rules are based on hospitalisation figures, which cannot be perfectly predicted and could go back up. There is a very short time-frame left for clarification if people are going to feel confident making any kind of holiday plans.

But it is worth offering whatever clarity can be attempted, considering the plight of the industry and the vast scale of pent-up demand there is certain to be.