Hoteliers call for action over industry ‘crisis’

HOTEL owners have called on the Government to roll out a series of emergency measures to safeguard an industry they claim is in crisis.

Suggesting that 10,000 of the 65,000 jobs in the hotel sector could be in jeopardy, the Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) demanded new credit facilities of up to €150,000 for owners, a reduction in local taxes and rates, a new incentive scheme for investors and a guarantee the State’s new bad bank agency will not distort property market prices. Yesterday’s meeting of 200 IHF members in Malahide was held in light of a number of worrying developments in the industry over recent months.

Among them the examinership of the Lynch Hotel Group, the conversion of two hotels in Tallaght built by the property developer Liam Carroll into studio apartments and the liquidation of the company behind the financing of the redevelopment of Whites Hotel in Wexford.