RTÉ to spend around €350k on leading hotels for guests

Cash-strapped RTÉ is to spend €350,000 over two years on a string of five-star and four-star hotels around Dublin to accommodate celebrities and other contributors who appear on the station’s programmes.

According to a contract award, the five-star Merrion, Conrad, and Dylan hotels have beaten off competition from other five-star hotels around Dublin to secure a place on a hotel panel to accommodate celebrities and guests who are appearing on RTÉ.

In addition, a number of hotels — the Ballsbridge hotel, the Clayton hotel, the Camden Court Hotel; along with the Radisson Blu St Helen’s Hotel and the Talbot Hotel, in Stillorgan — have secured places on a four-star panel.

The tender said RTÉ had around 1,150 hotel bookings in 2018, but that this figure can fluctuate annually and is not an indication of booking numbers.

Celebrities will have to pay for their own alcoholic drinks, however, with the tender stating that no alcoholic drinks or bar items are to be charged to RTÉ by the hotels and no additional charges or services are to be charged to RTÉ.

A spokesman for RTÉ said that the estimated €350,000 spend “is an accurate estimate for a two-year period. However, it is an estimate.”

The spokesman stated that the final figure “is dependent on RTÉ’s broadcasting schedule and RTÉ’s events programme for the year, which have not been finalised.”

“In the case of RTÉ radio and television programmes, guests are often secured at short notice,” he said.

“ RTÉ has successfully negotiated competitive rates with all hotels selected, following a public tender, despite inflation in the market,” he said.