Sir, Your Monday editorial "rebuilding an industry" – on the need to support our tourism sector – was well-argued and I fully support the intent.
I also presumed that after a elongated lockdown in the first six months of this year, tourism would open to allow us to support the recovery. Was I wrong?
In the last six weeks we have done two staycations, one to Limerick and the Burren and this week (last days of the summer) to Clifden and Connemara and have been frustrated by the “open, mainly closed days” of many of the attractions and pop-up and normal restaurants. In Limerick, on a Monday in August, The Hunt Museum and the People’s Museum were closed, as were most restaurants.
Many of the more popular Burren visitor sites were not open on Tuesday and Wednesday. The last two days in Connemara, we were on the Wild Atlantic Way, most of the pop-up food outlets – popularised on social media – decided to close from Monday to Wednesday for a break and in the interest of the wellbeing of their staff.
Some of the more popular good food restaurants in Clifden (not all) have done the same.
You have appealed to us all to go on staycation and support tourism jobs but we can only visit if these tourism sites and restaurants are open!
The Minister can only do so much. The people in tourism outlets need to up their game.
– Yours, etc,
DES CROWLEY,
Clonskeagh, Dublin 14.