The Irish Hotel Federation (IHF) has estimated that turnover at Irish hotels was down 48% last year against pre-pandemic levels and that 9m hotel bed nights were lost compared to 2019, highlighting the scale of the continuing impact of Covid-19 on the sector.

A nationwide survey found that some 19m nights' worth of bookings have been lost to the virus in 2020 and 2021 as the 63,000 hotels and guesthouses in Ireland registered an average occupancy rate of 33% -- compared to 73% in 2019 -- and 25% in Dublin.

The expected recovery following the removal of restrictions has been slower, with occupancy for the first two months of the year averaging 38% compared to 63% in 2019, while pre-bookings for the summer stand at just 39%, down from 88% three years ago.

"The past two years have been the most challenging in the history of Ireland’s hotel and guesthouse sector. IHF members, and indeed the entire tourism and hospitality sector, saw most of their business vanish overnight," Elaine Fitzgerald Kane, IHF president, said.

"While domestic tourism and ‘staycations’ enabled many businesses to keep their heads above water, average occupancy for 2021 was just 33%. International visitors – the heartbeat of Ireland’s tourism industry, with more €7.25bn in foreign exchange earnings in 2019 – slowed to a trickle.

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"Pre-Covid, we welcomed over 10m overseas visitors to our country annually, supporting jobs and livelihoods in every town and village in the country.  The scale of the decimation of the entire sector is unprecedented."

Fitzgerald Kane said the sector was "optimistic" for the future, but the pace of recovery is "disappointingly slow" and that the figures show the scale of the ground that hotels need to make up in advance of the summer.

Around seven in 10 hotels and guesthouses (68%) are positive or very positive about the year ahead, but the IHF has called for government measures to help rein in business, insurance, energy and rates costs as the sector tries to get back on its feet.

Prior to the pandemic, it is estimated that the tourism industry supported some 270,000 jobs or around a tenth of all jobs in Ireland, with 10.9m visitors from outside the state and €9.2bn in revenue generated by tourism annually.

(Pic: Getty Images)