Survey: Dublin hotels break attendance records

Dublin hotels have reached an all time occupancy high, despite a sharp rise in operational costs within the hospitality industry in Ireland.

This is according the latest hotel industry survey released by HBC (Horwath Bastow Charleton, Chartered Accountancy).

The results also reveal another robust revenue performance by the Irish hotel industry during 2006, with 5,500 new hotel rooms being added to the market.

Hotels in Dublin continue to break records and results of the survey have shown that hotels in the capital have reached an all time occupancy high of 76.8%.

Dublin hotels earned on average €5.43 extra for every room sold in 2006 bringing the average room rate for Dublin to hotels to €120.38.

September 2006, saw occupancy levels reach 87.1% .

According to HBC the demand for hotel rooms in Ireland will continue to increase and with a slowing of new supply of hotel rooms coming on stream the opportunities for reasonable and sustainable revenue growth will exist.

The arrival of the National Conference Centre will be a major boost to the hotel sector in Ireland, with visitor numbers of approximately 567,000 per annum expected by 2012.

Coupled with this new target, the change in government policy regarding VAT for conference business will have a positive affect in attracting the key business tourist to Ireland.