Safety measures in place at City of Derry Airport
The NI Tourism Alliance (NITA) said the sector is facing a set back of up to 15 years because of the continued lockdown restrictions.
NITA represents tourism operators, visitor attractions and tour guides.
Under current guidelines, people should not travel in or out of the North of Ireland for non-essential reasons.
The Executive’s pathway to recovery document includes preparing for the full return of leisure travel under step 5 of the plan for easing restrictions.
But as yet no indicate date has been set for when this will return.
From yesterday, Easter Monday, Loganair resumed flights from the City of Derry Airport to Glasgow four days per week ramping up to a daily service in late June.
The Liverpool service will commence on the 24th May at four days per week increasing to a daily service in late June.
Ryanair flights to Edinburgh from CODA have been cancelled.
Ryanair have confirmed UK domestic cancellations are due to the flight permissions not being granted by UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
Joanne Stuart, Chief Executive of NITA, said businesses have been left with little hope for the future due to a lack of reopening dates from the Executive.
“Anybody coming from Great Britain to Northern Ireland and who is staying for more than 24 hours has to self isolate for 10 days,” she told Good Morning Ulster.
“At the moment we are more or less closed so unless you are travelling for an essential reason you can’t come to Northern Ireland.
“That GB market is going to be really important for us this summer,” she said.
“With the testing and the roll out of the vaccination programme and the protocols, airlines and ferries have put in place, we are getting to the point where we should be able to open travel up throughout the UK.
“The problem is we really don’t have a plan. We want to see the roadmap for international travel, but for us we also want the roadmap for UK travel.”
The industry body said 50% of visitors outside the region came from Great Britain before the pandemic.
The government has confirmed a traffic light system will be used when international travel returns, but it will be up to the Executive to follow the measure and agree on a date for foreign holidays to be permitted.
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