In Friday’s Irish Independent (February 13), travel editor Pól O’Conghaile criticised the ‘travel shaming’ that has dominated so much of the debate on how and when we should open up our borders. As we eagerly await the outcome of tomorrow’s meeting between the Irish Travel Agents’ Association and Minister Eamon Ryan and Minister of State Hildegarde Naughton, we at ITTN echo O’Conghaile’s plea for a more conciliatory tone toward travel – and a wholehearted support of the travel industry.
“But we are going beyond restricting travel. We are demonising it. And by obsessing so hard on one area, by continually failing to see it within the context of flawed plans, community transmission and vaccine delays, we are tying it to fear and panic. We are removing hope for 2021, and we risk deepening Covid’s devastation of our holiday and tourism industries.” – Pól O’Conghaile, Travel Editor, Irish Independent
After the devastation of 2020, we can ill afford to let 2021 slip by in the same way. As Paul Hackett of Click & Go warned after last week’s presentation to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications Networks, “if we don’t support this industry there won’t be an industry. It’ll be managed out of the UK.”
You can read the article here.
