Confidence about the remainder of the tourist season has been expressed by the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, Mr O'Donoghue. He was speaking at a function to mark the 150th anniversary of the Killarney Great Southern Hotel.
There was little to be gained for tourism by selling off the Aer Rianta-owned Great Southern Hotel group, the Minister said, amidst growing concern about the future of the nine hotels in light of the break-up of Aer Rianta."I have always had the view the Great Southern Hotel Group is a flagship for the Irish tourism industry and makes an enormous contribution."
Mr O'Donoghue expects a slight increase in visitors from the US and Europe by the end of the year. Tourism was in line for "an extremely good" autumn, he predicted, following a recent visit to the US.
Mr O'Donoghue was also confident of increasing numbers from Germany and hoped, in the near future, to achieve a 10 per cent - or 30,000 - increase on visitors from Germany. He said Germany was "a litmus test" for the industry across the EU and if one picked up numbers in Germany, one picked them up everywhere.
Tourism Ireland also had campaigns in France, Spain and Italy.
Asked if the spat between Italy and Germany might this year benefit Ireland, given reports of Germans cancelling holidays in Italy after an Italian junior minister described them as "hyper-nationalistic blondes", Mr O'Donoghue remarked: "I'm glad I don't have a junior minister like him."