AVEA meets Peter Burke TD, Minister for Enterprise, Tourism & Employment
AVEA Chair and CEO Anne O’Donoghue and Catherine Flanagan met with Minister Peter Burke in advance of Budget 2026 to present details of AVEA’s Budget Submission.
As the tourism portfolio has now moved to its new ministerial home, the meeting was an opportunity to brief the Minister and his officials on challenges facing the visitor attractions and experiences sector. AVEA’s 140 members on the island of Ireland include rural and regionally based attractions which are important employers and economic drivers. Our members employ 6,000, and welcome almost 20 million visitors per year, generating income of approx. €90m in 2024 (AVEA Member Business Survey). Supporting rural tourism means supporting sustainable jobs in SMEs in rural/regional locations. Visitor attractions drive local economies often where there are few other sources of employment and economic activity.
AVEA outlined that the rising cost of doing business is the most urgent challenge facing the sector. AVEA urged the Minister to address input costs (prioritising relief on energy, insurance, food, and other operational inputs), to recognise the SME burden of implementing certain policies, and to enable competitive pricing via support mechanisms to help attractions remain affordable and attractive to domestic and international visitors.
The case was presented to extend the 9% VAT rate to visitor attraction ticket sales, which has been estimated as a cost to the Exchequer of – at the very most – €15 million for the full year 2026. There is strong merit in extending this within the tourism sector to visitor attractions as these are vulnerable but viable businesses with strong regional bias. In our view, the cost is a small increment, and benefits widespread.
Other items discussed included the re-activation of the Tourism and Hospitality Forum and the Careers Oversight Group; the criticality of prioritising essential infrastructure projects to optimise international and regional access; the importance of equipping Tourism Ireland and Fáilte Ireland with budgets that meet tourism ambition; and investment in product and innovation to give tourism the best possible enablers for success and growth.
We look forward to the publication of the new tourism policy, and to contributing positively and constructively to support the Minister’s tourism goals.
