Hospitality has one of the highest rates of Irish owned businesses and employment, according to the latest SME Monitor published by Banking & Payments Federation Ireland,
In the hospitality sector, some 86pc of employment is in Irish-owned enterprises, the BPFI SME Monitor indicate.
Overall Irish GDP increased by 13.3pc in Q1 2025, but this was driven largely by medical and pharmaceutical exports.
Foreign resident visitors increased travel spend by 12pc, while domestic tourism expenditure rose by 15.3pc in 2024
Brian Hayes, Chief Executive BPFI shared: “It is encouraging to see that with the publication of the new Tourism Policy Framework for the period to 2030, there are new efforts to boost business tourism and year-round domestic travel. Given that global trading conditions are likely to deteriorate, and Ireland’s reliance on foreign direct investment, these efforts will be critical to ensuring that growth is more balanced and not overly reliant on unpredictable international trends.” Irish residents spent an estimated €3.6bn on domestic travel in 2024, an increase of 15.3pc year-on-year. More broadly, Irish consumers and businesses spent €12.3bn in hospitality and tourist outlets in Ireland in the twelve months ending March 2025 according to BPFI analysis of payment card data from the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI).”
“In 2024, Ireland hosted 6.6m foreign resident visitors who spent an estimated €8.2bn, including on travel fares, up 12pc from 2023. However, while nearly 1.1m foreign residents visited Ireland in the first quarter of 2025, it’s down from 1.4m visitors during the same period in 2024. Given their importance to the economy, this trend in foreign visitors should be monitored closely, but domestic tourists also make a crucial contribution to the sector.
“Looking ahead, 80pc of tourism businesses expect stable or increased visitor numbers in 2025, according to Fáilte Ireland’s latest Tourism Barometer, although cost pressures along with continued increases in prices could risk Ireland’s affordability and competitiveness in the tourism sector in the future.
“Today’s SME Monitor shows that the Irish economy is performing well in 2025 to date, with early estimates from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) showing that Irish gross domestic product (GDP) is up 13.3pc when compared with the same quarter in 2024. However, most of this growth was driven by multinational exports, where 99pc of the increase of €34.3bn in total exports was accounted for by exports of medical and pharmaceutical products, largely due to front loading, particularly to the US, by multinational firms reacting to tariff threats by the new US administration in early April.”
“Overall employment reached historic highs by the end of 2024, with 2.8m people in work, almost 400,000 more than pre-pandemic levels in 2019. The employment rate stood at 74.3pc in Q4 2024, the highest since records began 25 years ago. Notwithstanding the significant contribution of foreign firms to economic output as well as total taxes paid in the Irish economy, Irish-owned businesses in fact accounted for nearly 75pc of total employment and 66pc of total earnings in the Irish economy.”
