Irish tourism begins long road to recovery on St Patrick's Day

Ireland celebrated St Patrick's Day with packed parades through its towns and cities for the first time in three years on Thursday, celebrations its battered tourism sector hopes will begin a long road to recovery. The national holiday traditionally kicked off the tourism season before Covid19 cut the number of arrivals in Ireland below 5 million in both 2020 and 2021 from the record 20 million in 2019, four times the country's population. For Cathal O'Connell, whose green Paddywagon coaches bus visitors from around the world to tourist spots like the Cliffs of Moher, Giant's Causeway and Blarney Stone, winning back 40 per cent to 50 per cent of his pre-pandemic customers this year "would be a win". "From what I'm getting bookings wise, and my business would be a good barometer, that's what it looks like," said O'Connell, who unlike many hospitality operators could not fall back on a booming staycation market over the past two summers. "Had it gone on another year, we would have gone under and we were probably one of the most successful tourist companies in the country. We'll make a heavy loss this year. If we can get back to break-even in the next three years, we'll be doing well," he added. O'Connell said that he was essentially "asset stripping" to get back to profit, had started to sell some of his 70 buses and had so far shut three of Paddywagon's seven tourist shops. Having employed 188 people in 2019, it now has a staff of 35.