Zombie hotels await NAMA attention

IRELAND’S hospitality industry will not recover before 2015 as the sector continues to struggle with issues raised by zombie hotels, says Irish Tourist Industry Confederation (ITIC) chief executive Eamonn McKeon.

Visitor numbers have plummeted from Britain, USA, Germany and France, the source of 80% of all overseas guests. Hotel room rates have fallen, but a slow recovery in these four economies will keep numbers low until 2015, says the ITIC chief.

Meanwhile, the hotel sector is in limbo awaiting NAMA’s decision on what to do with the zombie hotels, those under-occupied monuments to Ireland’s era of building tax incentives? So what is a zombie hotel?