Tourism development agency Fáilte Ireland has hired risk specialists Marsh Ireland.
It is the first step in an initiative that Fáilte Ireland hopes will cut the hospitality industry's insurance costs by at least 30 per cent.
Fáilte Ireland yesterday said it has commissioned Marsh Ireland, the Irish subsidiary of global insurance player Marsh McLennan, to gather information on premiums and claims' experiences from hotels, bed and breakfasts, and restaurants.
A statement from the agency said yesterday that it has been estimated that the tourism industry could make savings in insurance costs of up to one-third of its current level by the beginning of the 2004 season.
Fáilte Ireland chief executive Mr Shaun Quinn told The Irish Times last night that this figure was a "guess-timate" and said the industry hoped it could cut costs even further.
"We would like to think that this exercise would produce more than that," he said. "A reduction of 30 per cent is small by comparison with the increases of the last three years."
Mr Quinn estimated that insurance costs in the industry had increased by 350 per cent in that time. Last June, Irish Hotels' Federation (IHF) president Mr Jim Murphy told the Oireachtas Committee on Enterprise and Small Business that hoteliers had experienced average increases of 351 per cent since 2000.
IHF chief executive Mr John Power said that, after wages, insurance costs were the highest faced by hotels and guesthouses. He said premia needed to be cut by at least 60 per cent over the next two years to guarantee the Irish tourist industry's competitiveness.
Mr Quinn said the level of increases faced by the industry were incredible and warned that they were hitting its competitiveness.
Fáilte Ireland's chairman, businesswoman Ms Gillian Bowler, echoed that warning in the agency's statement.
She pointed out that the average premium in the industry in Northern Ireland and the UK was half the cost which applied here.
"The industry is becoming more price conscious in terms of delivering value for money to visitors but cannot achieve this when faced with rising costs such as insurance," she said.
