The President of the Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) today called for the scrapping of landing charges on European flights into Ireland.
Mr Jim Murphy's address to the IHF's 65th annual conference in Galway today highlighted the "need to provide incentives for airlines" to encourage them to develop new routes from Europe into Ireland.
He said: "We are urging the Government to ask Aer Rianta to put the interest of this country and the 150,000 people employed in Irish tourism to the top of their priority list - not the profit line in their accounts".
The IHF president also called for the deregualtion of the transport industry and warned the Government to "get real" on insurance costs.
According to the IHF, insurance is crippling the hotel and guesthouse industry, with insurance companies quoting renewal premiums between 15-20 per cent higher than 2002.
The chief executive of the IHF, Mr John Power, announced a new "special value" scheme to be launched later in the month by the Minister for Tourism, Mr John O'Donoghue.
This will include co-ordinated set-menu offers and guide book among the 1,000 members of the IHF.