Tourist information offices operated by Cork-Kerry Tourism have shown a major fall-off in booking business, according to the annual report of the South West Regional Authority for 2003 to be presented to members in the next weeks.
The decline of as much as a quarter of business in the Cork Kerry region's head office in Cork is being accounted for in the report largely by the growth in Internet booking.
However, simple information queries have also fallen off dramatically in the busiest offices including Killarney. And at least one prominent Kerry hotelier has rejected suggestions that people are booking through the Internet instead of through traditional methods, to the extent suggested.
Mr Fionnbar Walsh, manager of the Smerwick Harbour hotel in west Kerry, said people simply are not coming to the region and in particular to areas such as west Kerry and Dingle.
He said the picture would be even worse for 2004 with a huge slump in business for July and August.
Mr Walsh blamed Government controlled costs, over-regulation, and the flight of the domestic tourist abroad for the fall-off this year. "We are crippled with regulations and costs," he said. In 2002, almost 11,300 bed nights were booked through the Cork Tourist Information Office.
That figure dropped to 8,500 last year. Killarney, the second busiest office in the region, declined from just over 10,210 to almost 9,000 bed nights booked in 2003, a fall of 12 per cent.
The Dingle office suffered almost a 40 per cent drop in the bed nights booked through its office to just over 3,700 last year.Inquiries were down by 11 per cent in Cork and by 8 per cent in Killarney.
Glengarriff in west Cork suffered a decline in inquiries of almost 40 per cent.