Cork Hoteliers are urging the Government to retain the 9% VAT rate for the tourism and hospitality sector.
The current tourism VAT rate is due to increase 13 and a half percent at the end of February.
In a statement to RedFM news today, the Cork Branch of the Irish Hotels Federation have welcomed comments by Minister for Tourism Catherine Martin, who says she will continue to seek a further extension of the 9% rate.
Hoteliers say the industry is at a "critical juncture" with consumer confidence reaching lows that haven't been seen in a decade.
The group say tourism and hospitality supports around 270,000 jobs including almost 27,000 in Cork and have warned that a fulll recovery of the sector isn't expected until 2026.
Speaking to RedFM News, Manager of The Castle Hotel Macroom, Rory Buckley says the industry has had a tough few years, and they don't want to have to increase their prices:
"We've had COVID, we've had staffing crisis, we've had the energy crisis as well, our energy bills we've seen them going up 200 or 300%. We employ around 100 people here Macroom between full-timers part-timers, students, and definitely that that rate would have an impact on it. We'd have to pass that onto our consumers which we don't like doing you know, we've had a lot of that already, recently Heineken put up replaces Diageo put up their prices, we've had to pass that on, the VAT rate going up would mean passing it on again and we don't want to do that."
