Record sales in sight as hotels spree continues

AS Irish hotel sales inch up to an end-of-year €500m tally, more hotels, north and south of the Border, have found new owners in the past week, in Wexford, Galway and Fermanagh.

Actively expansionist hotel operators the Dalata Group have continued their buying spree, paying €31.7m cash for the 157-bed Whites Hotel in Wexford, and the 195-bed Clayton Hotel, at Ballybrit, Galway.

And, across the Border, the Lough Erne Resort, in Co Fermanagh, which hosted the 2013 G8 summit, has been bought as a going concern by a US investor and golf fan, Tony Saliba, via an affiliate of US-based investors Tralee Portfolio Management. The same hospitality sector player is also understood to be actively looking at the Adare Manor trophy sale, guiding €27m, and which has more local interest also being shown by the likes of JP McManus.