Ireland’s trave trade has nothing to fear from background economic trends, economist Dan O’Brien told the Travel centres conference in Killashee, Co Kildare.
The conference, run by Dominic and Berne Burke was attended by 170p delegates.
“We hear a lot about about housing cost. It is very severe for people but a huge chunk of people have no housing costs. You can break home ownership down to four groupings, people who rent socially, people who rent privately, people who own their own home with a mortgage and people who own their home without a mortgage. The biggest group in Ireland are people who own their own home without a mortgage, 40pc of people have no housing costs.
“They will tend to have savings they tend to be a bit older and higher rates if the banks pass on to the deposits means are getting little interests from their deposits so for your industry might actually be beneficial in some ways.”
He said headline events like international instability and environmental concerns were having little impact on the long term trend towards greater numbers and greater numbers in travel.
“Before the pandemic there was €100bn in deposits, now the figure is €100bn. This money is decreasing in value because interest rates are low.”
Mr O’Brien quoted a line from the opening address to the conference by ITAA President Angle Walsh: “travel is the only thing you spend money on that make you richer.”
He said current low interest rates could mean this was truer now more than ever before
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