Tourism and travel have the same question: What’s the plan for reopening?

For a decade, Niall Rochford has been in charge at Ashford Castle, dealing with countless tricky situations with the grace and mild-mannered diplomacy expected from someone leading one of Ireland's most luxurious hotels.

But even Rochford, the general manager of the Cong, Co Mayo hotel, is struggling to contain his frustration these dark days. “Without a roadmap, one that we all know may change, it is very difficult,” he tells The Irish Times.

“Even if Government says we will not reopen until mid-June, so be it, but give us a plan or a target so I can give my team, guests, suppliers and owners some hope. Government is in danger of losing support from reasonable people like me.

“Give us a target and as businesses we can help to reach it. See us as part of the solution not just part of the problem,” Rochford goes on, and he is far from alone in the State’s €10-billion-a-year hospitality, travel and tourism trade.

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We are asking for a roadmap – even one that can be changed. At least we would have something to work off

Every element of the industry remains largely mothballed. Worse, it is in a state of miserable confusion having spent over a year grappling with the worst crisis in its history, caused by a global pandemic.

But of all the many questions it finds itself struggling to answer as Ireland heads into a second Covid summer, there is one repeatedly being asked across the board with increasing urgency: "What's the plan?"

Hoteliers, tour operators, travel agents, restaurants, pubs, airport operators, airlines, would-be tourists and travel insurance providers are pleading with the Government for even the most tentative exit route, a timeline, a goal.

Meanwhile, the Government, bitten by past missed targets, the surge in cases after the Christmas reopening, and the blame it suffered for that outcome, remains cautious, unwilling or unable to commit.

Rochford's sense of frustration is echoed by Pat Dawson, the head of the Irish Travel Agents Association (ITAA), who has watched his sector being decimated – and being demonised at times – for more than a year. "There is no real light at the end of the tunnel," he says.

Travel and tourism have become handy whipping boys for the Government, he argues, with scant regard being paid to the fact that as a sector it is worth billions to the local economy and sustains hundreds of thousands of jobs.

In spite of repeated calls for support and for guidance, the industry continues to be "ignored" by Government, Dawson complains, pointing out that he has met Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan just once in the last year, with little or nothing to show for it.

“We are asking for a roadmap – even one that can be changed. At least we would have something to work off, something that says if we can get to a certain point then certain things can happen,” he says.

Others are being given a plan. The United Kingdom has set down a very clear outline for reopening in the wake of the success so far of its vaccination programme – a success that could cause huge problems on this island within weeks.

Tourist hotspots

Ryanair, EasyJet and Jet2 will add extra capacity from Belfast to tourist hotspots by the end of May. "With Dublin closed, people are going to be going across the Border in their thousands. There will have to be a plan for that, and that work has to be done now.

“There will be no point in turning around at the end of May and asking what are we going to do,” says Dawson, who says his members, who employ about 3,500 people, are trying to make their own plans for the year ahead as best they can.

Step one on that plan is no bookings until late summer at the earliest. “They don’t want to relive the nightmare of last year with the refunds and the ghost flights that we saw. There is no point in getting into the air if things are not right on the ground,” he says.

“At best we might see some business by September but there is lot of work to be done and there is no point in doing anything without a plan.”

It is our biggest indigenous industry and the largest employer in rural Ireland and if tourism is to survive we have to get international travel up and running

While Dawson worries most about those who want to leave Ireland over the summer, Eoghan O’Mara Walsh of the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation’s main concern is about those who want to come in.

However, the relationship between the two is symbiotic. Without aircraft flying Irish people to other countries there will not be aircraft to fly those who want to leave behind their own closed existences over the last year to come here.

In spite of all the talk of a staycation boom in 2021, overseas visitors remain the lifeblood of the State’s tourism industry. “It is our biggest indigenous industry and the largest employer in rural Ireland and if tourism is to survive we have to get international travel up and running,” says O’Mara Walsh. “It is a simple as that. What is so frustrating that the Government has not outlined a path ahead or any metrics that have to be reached.”

US president Joe Biden has said that vaccines will be freely available to all US citizens by the end of May, yet Ireland has still no plan for how it might cater for the many thousands of vaccinated Americans who may wish to taste Ireland’s green shores.

O'Mara Walsh backs the decision by the European Commission to back the creation of a Covid-19 certificate to allow EU citizens to travel to other member states without the need to quarantine after they have arrived. If adopted EU-wide, the so-called digital green certificate might push authorities here to act faster.

Too cautiously

“I think, left to its own devices, our Government might tread too cautiously. When it comes to a roadmap for reopening, other countries are streets ahead of us.

“They have set dates with specific goals and metrics. That is essential. Airlines need time to ramp up schedules, hotels need time to retrain staff and give their places a lick of paint and organise with suppliers,” he says.

O’Mara Walsh plays down the idea that a staycation once again will do anything more than keep tourism businesses on life support. Yes, summer accommodation in some prime locations is already hard to find and sometimes very expensive; but across the country as a whole, things look bleak.

According to the Irish Hotels Federation, about 70 per cent of the available hotel rooms in Ireland in August remain unsold.

Eoghan Corry has been reporting on leisure travel at home and abroad for decades and has never seen a year like the one just passed.

To describe Corry as optimistic might be a stretch. However, he is at least modestly hopeful a recovery is on the way and believes travel across Europe will start to pick up dramatically in the months ahead.

“The straw in the wind, and it is a big straw, is the attitude of the airlines,” he says. “They have a very ambitious inventory in place for the summer and across its network Ryanair expects to move around 70 per cent of the passenger numbers they did in 2019.

“Almost all the routes are there and there is huge frequency on some flights and the prices are not cheap,” he says. He is not wrong. As it stands, Ryanair plans to fly from Dublin to Malaga three times on one Saturday in the middle of July, with the cost of a ticket currently standing at in excess of €200.

It will not be the travel industry or the aviation sector that determine how quick and how big the recovery will be, it will be the consumer

Corry cautions people against being “distracted by the debate in Ireland which is so negative”. Look elsewhere in the EU, he argues, where people are at the very least cautiously optimistic that there will be a summer of travel “once we get to a certain level of vaccinations”.

The tourism authorities in Portugal and Spain have already outlined how they plan to reopen for the summer ahead – depending on clearly outlined goals being reached – while Greece is set to reopen in the middle of May.

Corry says there is an expectation that everything will happen quickly once leisure travel starts to take off again, but stresses that “it will not be the travel industry or the aviation sector that determine how quick and how big the recovery will be, it will be the consumer. It will be like everyone is travelling for the first time again and the consumers will need to be persuaded that it is safe to travel. “

The new January

He suggests that when it comes to booking, July might well be the new January, the month in a normal year when almost 50 per cent of holiday bookings are normally made. “With a run of luck, July will be when everyone starts to book for August and beyond but, we do need that run of luck.”

Paul Hackett of online travel company Click & Go is not so optimistic. "No one is booking anything before September and we are warning those who do book that we may have to change their dates."

He also bemoans the absence of a plan “to unwind any of this. On the one hand you have radio ads saying 80 per cent of the adult population will be vaccinated by the end of June, yet we still have no idea when travel might resume.”

He points out that in the UK there are dates – which are subject to change – for the reopening of the country and, by June 21st, there are to be no restrictions, all going according to plan. “They have a plan but we are all over the shop and we are constantly being told to forget 2021. A plan based on the R number or case numbers or the numbers in hospital or whatever would be something. It could be subject to certain conditions.

“We all understand what that means, but the vacuum that they are leaving really antagonises people. They are treating us like idiots. If we are told we are going to be swimming in vaccinations by a certain date then let us plan on that basis.”

The DAA’s Paul O’Kane watched as passenger numbers through Dublin Airport collapsed at the start of the pandemic and collapsed even further at the start of this year. “It is still very difficult for us to make any predictions for this year given that, as yet, there is no roadmap from the Government in relation to the general reopening of air travel,” he says.

There doesn't seem to be a plan and that is the frustrating thing. People want to at least plan for holidays, to have something to look forward to

Airlines also need guidance. Many will take as long as three months to get up to 50 per cent of the planes flying again for the very simple reason that pilots have to take off and land at least three flights a month to retain their certification, and, with so many planes parked up, that has not been happening.

Sales of travel insurance have gone off the cliff too over the last 12 months; according to Jason Whelan of Blue Insurance, there is "no new business coming through, there is nothing happening".

Like others, he is “hoping for a bit of guidance from the Government. There doesn’t seem to be a plan and that is the frustrating thing. People want to at least plan for holidays, to have something to look forward to and we just don’t have that.”

Changed world

He says that the company has substantially rewritten its policies to reflect a changed world. He points out that the industry follows the advice of the Department of Foreign Affairs and cover tends to be withdrawn in the event that official advice warns against non-essential travel to a particular place.

Blue Insurance is planning to roll out policies that will afford people cover for non-Covid related incidents or illnesses if they travel in the months ahead.

“What we are able to say, for those people that still travel or have reason to travel, then we will provide them with a policy and that hasn’t always been the case,” Whelan says.

Its policies will also offer cover for people who are diagnosed with Covid within 14 days of a scheduled departure, or if they are hospitalised with the illness. As with most other countries, government-imposed lockdowns, restrictions or sudden changes to advice are not covered by travel insurance companies.

O’Mara Walsh tries to finish on an upbeat note.

“The hope is that the worst is behind us and that Covid will be in the rear view mirror by the end of the year, but we have to make sure as much of the fabric of the tourism industry is still in place this time next year or otherwise we won’t have anything to sell to the visitors who want to travel again,” he says.

Neither the Department of Transport nor the Taoiseach’s office responded to detailed queries from this newspaper asking what the plans might be for reopening the travel sector, both inward and outward, and when the industry might get to look at them.

Don’t forget your Covid-19 passport

On St Patrick’s Day the European Commission confirmed that it was to back the creation of a Covid-19 certificate which, if adopted, will allow EU citizens to travel to other member states without the need to quarantine on arrival.

The so-called digital green certificate will be valid in all EU member states and offer digital proof that a person has either been vaccinated against Covid-19, received a negative test result or recovered from Covid-19.

Under the proposal, national governments will be in charge of issuing the certificates. When travelling, every EU citizen or third-country national legally staying or residing in the EU who holds a digital green certificate should be exempted from free movement restrictions in the same way as citizens from the visited member state.

If a member state continues to require holders of a digital green certificate to quarantine or test, it must notify the commission and all other member states and justify this decision.

EU countries have struggled to find common ground on an EU vaccine "passport", with countries led by France arguing that such measures would discriminate against citizens who are last in line for jabs, while states such as Greece have pushed for a common framework to facilitate travel ahead of the lucrative summer season.

Commission officials have stressed the certificate will not be a “passport” but a common system to help governments co-ordinate travel measures as vaccination programmes are rolled out across the EU. Individual countries will also be able to strike bilateral travel agreements with non-EU countries as long as they are approved by the commission beforehand, said the document.

Airlines have also been running their own trials of digital passes to try to nudge the EU into widespread adoption of electronic certificates which would show that a passenger had tested negative for Covid-19, or been vaccinated, before they boarded an aircraft.

The proposal is subject to agreement from a majority of member states and the European Parliament.

ITAA president Michael Doorley says it at least "charts the way ahead for a balanced policy and common EU approach, pointing to what needs to be done to advance the time when we can recover our European way of life, and do so in a safe and sustainable way with control over the virus."

He accepts that health policy requires continued control until a sufficient vaccination coverage is achieved, but adds that “the conditions must be created across the single market to allow for safe and sustained reopening, so that citizens can enjoy their rights and economic and social activity can resume.”