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Irish Times
7 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
Closure of Bray-Greystones cliff walk has ‘cost the economy €73m'
More than €73 million has been lost to the economy – equating to more than €50,000 a day – because of the continuing closure of the cliff walk between Bray and Greystones , Co Wicklow, economist Jim Power has said. Mr Power, an economic adviser to the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation and a financial commentator, estimated the loss to the economy included €21 million that would have gone to the Exchequer in taxes. The 7km cliff walk, developed in the 1840s as an access route for workers building the railway line, was, until its closure in February 2021, one of the most popular walks on Ireland's east coast. At its highest point it rises to about 100m above sea level. However, following the collapse of a section of boulder clay on the Greystones side and a rockfall further towards Bray, the walk was closed on a temporary basis. READ MORE Wicklow County Council put barriers at either end of the route and advertised an alternative walk, some of which was on the main Bray to Greystones road before climbing the head and emerging at a landmark cross overlooking Bray seafront. However, as time passed and the cliff walk remained closed, local traders expressed concern at the lack of business. 'The closure hit us immediately. I would say we were first in the firing line, and then it hit everyone else,' said Nigel Spendlove, who runs a coffee shop at Greystones harbour. Nigel Spendlove at Spendlove's coffee shop in Greystones. Photograph: Tim O'Brien Claire Cullen, who runs The Fat Fox cafe and cake shop on Trafalgar Road, Greystones, said the closure had cost her '500 customers a week. That is 2,000 customers a month – it is a lot for any business to take'.. Local group Friends of the Cliff Walk commissioned Mr Power to carry out an economic study of the economic cost of the closure. As part of the overall figure of €73 million, Mr Power estimated losses to local shops, restaurants and coffee shops at €4 million, based on yearly spending by walkers of €3.5 million. Speaking to The Irish Times, Mr Power said he had relied on Fáilte Ireland reports on visitor spending, figures for the numbers of people previously walking the cliff walk and his own interviews with businesses in the area among other sources. He said that according to Fáilte Ireland figures overseas visitors would typically spend €105 each a day, domestic visitors would be spending €92 daily and local walkers would spend about €10. He said recent analysis showed 10 per cent of visitors on the walk were from overseas, 40 per cent would be domestic visitors and the rest locals. Using official figures showing 350,000 visitors in the last year the walk was open, the annual spend was €18.4 million. With the walk now closed four years that loss amounted to €73 million overall, he said. He said the impact on the economies of Bray and Greystones has been 'very significant'. 'If we assume the average spend locally is €10 per visitor, the overall spend locally would be €3.5 million. This would support 77 jobs in tourism and hospitality in the local area. Assuming an average wage of €20,000, this would equate to a wage injection of €1.54 million into the local economy,' he said at the launch of his report on Tuesday in Greystones. Wicklow County Council said it was in the process of appointing consultants to advise 'short-term and long-term solutions to address the issues with sections of the walk that have already collapsed or are about to collapse'. The council said it had 'identified unsafe sections, reluctantly closed them, and signposted alternative routes around the collapsed sections of the cliff walk'. It said it was also working to identify funding for the work.
Irish Examiner
29-05-2025
- Irish Examiner
April sees recovery in tourism numbers following sharp first quarter drop
The number of foreign visitors arriving in Ireland last month was down 4% on April of last year, new data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) shows. Some 528,100 tourists completed a trip to Ireland in April, with the largest contingent of visitors coming from Great Britain at 41%, followed by visitors from the United States at 18%. The 4% drop is the smallest annual fall in foreign visitors since last October. The data from the CSO has been closely watched in recent months, with figures for January showing a 25% drop and those for February showing a fall of 30%. Tourism industry figures have questioned the data, however, arguing that such significant drops in visitor numbers were not being witnessed by them on the ground. Reacting to the data for April, Eoghan O'Mara Walsh, chief executive of the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation (ITIC), said the tourism numbers show a recovery from the sharp decline reported in the first quarter. "Nonetheless, there remains somewhat of a disconnect between the monthly CSO survey and industry data," he said. "The latter includes airports, hotels and attractions which reported a robust April compared to a year ago helped by a later Easter period. "Industry record bums on seats and heads on pillows as opposed to the CSO sample survey – there remains a misalignment of sorts between the two data sources but it is narrowing and this is welcome," he said. The CSO data is based on in-person interviews with approximately 13,000 passengers departing Ireland through airports and ferry ports. April typically accounts for between 7% and 9% of total annual visitor figures. However, the CSO warned that because of the relatively small proportion of the total visitors accounted for in this period, external factors such as the date of Easter or other periodic events may have an observable impact. The data for April shows that the most frequent reason for travelling to Ireland was for a holiday at 40%. Visitors stayed a total of 3.4 million nights in the country, a drop of 1% when compared with April 2024, and down 6% when compared with April 2023. The average length of stay for foreign resident overnight visitors was 6.5 nights, up from an average of 6.4 nights in April 2024, and down from 7.9 nights in April 2023. Gregg Patrick, Statistician in the Tourism and Travel Division, said spending by tourists here, excluding their travel fares was was €375m. "Visitors from Great Britain accounted for €96m (26%) of this spend, Continental Europe for €134m (36%), North America for €121m(32%), and visitors from the Rest of the World for €25m (7%). Taken together, this represented a fall of 10% compared with April 2024, and a rise of 1% compared with April 2023," he said.
