Complaints that Portrush is now too expensive for tourists… (2024)

Brian O'Neill on July 23, 2024, 10:27 am | Readers 4508

I confess to never staying in Portrush; I am more of a Ballycastle man. Even Portstewart seems a nicer resort. Still, I know it is a popular resort for many, but now some in the business community are concerned that the resort has become so expensive that it is pricing out their traditional local market.

From Eimear McGovern in the Beltel:

A business owner in Portrush has criticised the “greed” of other business owners for driving out the core tourist basis who no longer visit the area – saying the north coast is more expensive than anywhere in the UK or Ireland.

Ricky Martin of Alive Adventures, a surf school and activities provider in the town said in the post-Covid years, prices have escalated in Portrush akin to seaside destination Cornwall in England.

The result is that tourists have been “driven away”, said Mr Martin – adding that “a lot of people who’ve come every year just don’t come anymore”.

After a decade of growth for his business, Mr Martin, posting on social media, said the sector has slowed significantly.

“A lot of people in the activity and outdoor sports sectors are on their knees. It’s coming up to the third week of July and I would have expected to have 200 people booked in – I have got nobody. I’m not saying poor me, I’m just trying to show how crazy that is,” he said. “I don’t see how I’m going to be open next year. We don’t have a sustainable business at the minute.”

“The core business was domestic tourists, people coming up to Portrush with their kids for a week every year.”

But times have changed on the north coast and Portrush became “the place to be” where “we’d see a Ferrari driving around town” amid the growth of holiday home ownership in the area.

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Mr Martin said: “A lot of people that have businesses in Portrush have in my eyes gotten a wee bit greedy. Portrush is about as expensive in London. I certainly haven’t been on holiday anywhere in the UK or Ireland that’s as expensive as Portrush. What that’s done is drive away our domestic tourists. A lot of people who’ve come every year just don’t come anymore.”

He added: “Portrush is on the verge of becoming this desolate place where we’re just filled with wealthy people’s second homes. We’re going to be left with an empty town – Portstewart is the same – with houses where a wealthy person is coming over for a week a year.”

Homes often cost half a million pounds while the average worker locally gets paid minimum wage, he said. Other activity providers have also lost business.

“We’re in big trouble at the minute. Nobody is choosing a week in Portrush over a week in Portugal if it’s the same price,” he said.

Accommodation providers, hotels, restaurants, bars have to “put their hands up”, said Mr Martin. “There’s no need for a pint to be the same price in Portrush as it is in London.

“We need to grow up a wee bit. Just because a few people driving around the town have Ferraris doesn’t suddenly mean we’re Monaco. We need to stop behaving as if we are because we’re going to have no tourist industry left,” he said.

“There’s no need for people in Portrush to be paying the same as they do in Paris. We’re not St Tropez. We’re not going to have any tourist industry left.”

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I understand where he is coming from. Ireland north and south have gotten very expensive for tourists. Over the 12th, I was meant to go to Donegal, but the weather forecast was awful, so I buggered off to Italy instead. It was sunny every day, and I could get accommodation for only £70 a night.

When I quickly looked at booking.com for a weekend in early August, some of the prices were quite eyewatering.

Now, it is a free market, and if they charge those rates, someone must pay it. I talked with a guy yesterday who said his friend paid £3000 for a week in Portrush. That seemed extraordinarily high to me, but I suppose if you factor in lunches, dinners, drinks, activities, etc, it all adds up.

The weather this summer has been dreadful. You can’t blame people for following my path and deciding that a holiday abroad is just better value and more fun.

It is a pity, as many of us have fond memories of family holidays in Irish seaside resorts, but even nostalgia has a price limit. And if we are honest, a fair amount of my childhood holiday memories are extreme boredom watching the rain coming down on a caravan window in Donegal. At the same time, we tried desperately to get any signal on the black-and-white TV powered by a car battery. Then, when you got a signal, you had the massive choice of RTÉ 1 or 2, and there was always absolutely f*ck all on that you would want to watch. Young ones these days, with their Netflix and YouTube, don’t know they are living.