Call for state buildings to plug Dublin hotel gap

TOURISM bosses yesterday expressed concern about a decline in the number of hotel rooms in Dublin city centre and called on the Government to consider making available the use of state buildings to counteract the problem.

Fáilte Ireland chief executive Shaun Quinn said there was some worry within the industry that there was an inadequate number of four-star hotels in the capital given the planned opening of the National Conference Centre in 2010.

However, Mr Quinn stressed that his comments were not made specifically in the context of recent high-profile closures of several well-known hotels on the southside of the city.

“The concern is that most of the hotel development in Dublin now is outside the city centre area,” said Mr Quinn.

Almost 1,200 hotel beds were lost following the closure of the Berkeley Court, Jurys and The Towers in Ballsbridge last year, followed by last week’s closure of the Burlington Hotel.

They represented more than 7% of bed capacity in Dublin city and county, while their closure resulted in the loss of conference and banqueting facilities in the city.

The three Ballsbridge hotels have reopened with reduced services for the immediate future pending attempts by their new owner, Seán Dunne, to get planning permission for a redevelopment of the area.

The Burlington is expected to reopen shortly, while plans for the site by property developer, Bernard McNamara, go through the planning process.

A report by the Irish Tour Operators Association last year also warned that even before the closure of the four large hotels Dublin had less than 30% of its room capacity in four- and five-star hotels compared with 50% in other big European cities.

Both Mr Quinn and Fáilte Ireland chairwoman Gillian Bowler urged the Government to consider making under-used buildings in state ownership available to provide accommodation and conference facilities for the corporate tourism market.

“I don’t want to name individual buildings, but I think we would be trying to push access to five or six of them where they should be more flexible in their thinking and not just reserve them for state events,” said Ms Bowler.

Mr Quinn said there was also some concern that some hotels outside Dublin were over-reliant on the domestic market. Irish people accounted for 62% of all nights spent in hotels last year.

Overall, 87 hotels opened last year bringing the number of available beds to more than 57,000. About 30 hotels closed.

Most tourist areas reported a good performance during 2008, but the Shannon region recorded a decline.