Just when you thought Brexit could do no more harm, a new economic threat looms, and this time to the valuable all-Ireland foreign tourism industry.
And it’s the north again that potentially has the most to lose.
Managing the Brexit fallout has been about protecting trade in dairy and food stuffs and manufactured goods that flow north and south and across the Irish Sea.
But the new economic threat comes as Keir Starmer presses ahead with his predecessor’s UK-wide Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) scheme.
This will require American and European tourists travelling from the Republic, not only to carry their passports, but to have pre-registered and have pre-paid £10 (€12) for an electronic permit to travel into the north.
Tourism chiefs and economists warn about the costs and hassle for foreign visitors that few other European countries competing for the same tourist dollars and euros would countenance.
And they warn about a host of hidden complications, including potentially invalid car and health insurance for foreign tourists in the event of forgetting to register for their venture into the north.
Promoting the whole island as a single tourism destination was a bread-and-butter success story of the Good Friday Agreement.
Foreign tourists criss-crossing the land have had little need to give thought to political borders.
But London appears to have given little thought to the way that economic life operates here, experts say.
The all-island agency Tourism Ireland says it has been spreading the word and has heard back from industry chiefs on their concerns.
Still, the need for permits to travel up the road has come as a surprise to many, say the Irish tourism chiefs, who had attended the major industry trade shows in Barcelona and London in recent weeks.
The US Embassy in Dublin also believes it to be significant news.
“Effective January 8, 2025, all US citizens who do not reside in Ireland transiting or travelling to the UK (including Northern Ireland) for tourism, family visits, business meetings, conferences, or short-term study for six months or less will require an ETA prior to travel,” the embassy said in a bulletin issued just ahead of the US Thanksgiving Holiday.
“To underscore, this is a major change to the UK’s travel regulations.
All non-resident US citizens in Ireland, including children, will be required to have a valid ETA when travelling to UK, even when traveling by land between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland,” it says.
And it cautions: “US citizens resident in Ireland should be prepared to offer proof of their status if asked by UK officials.”
Eoghan O’Meara Walsh, the chief executive of the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation (ITIC), which looks after the interests of all types of tourism businesses in the 26 counties, says the ETA entails more costs.
“ITIC has lobbied the UK government, and the Department of Foreign Affairs has lobbied, and all the parties in the north believe it to be daft,” O’Meara Walsh says.
“If you do a tourism business north of the border, you would be very worried about this,” the industry chief tells the Irish News.
A US tourist landing off one of the large number of direct transatlantic flights in Dublin could envisage taking in the Cliffs of Moher, some of the Wild Atlantic Way, the Guinness Storehouse and EPIC in Dublin, Titanic Belfast, the Causeway Coast, Derry, and on into Donegal.
From January, the northern part of the trip, including travel through Tyrone to Donegal, will require US visitors to pay and pre-register on the British system even for a short journey by car or coach.
Continental European tourists will face the same requirements from April.
Foreign tourists thinking of a day trip to Titanic by hopping on the new hourly service from Connolly Station to Great Victoria Street will now need to give considerable thought to an otherwise easy excursion north.
Senior economist Jim Power says the ETA scheme “is the tail end of Brexit” that could damage tourism across the whole island.
For foreign visitors, “anything that complicates is bad news”, Power says.
“Every single hotelier I have spoken to north or south will tell you that what saved their summer was America,” says Irish travel industry guru Eoghan Corry, the TravelExtra.ie publisher.
“Britain is struggling and France and Germany are struggling,” he tells the Irish News.
Requiring visitors to pay for travel permits is another burden tourism here could do without, the experts warn.
- Eamon Quinn is at eamon.quinnbiz@gmail.com
