Dalata Hotel Group CEO Pat McCann has said the COVID-19 crisis is creating opportunities for the group to expand.
Speaking to The Business Post, McCann said, "There are opportunities starting to appear for some leases that we have been unable to do before because the pricing was, frankly, just haywire.
"The opportunities I am looking at will be new-build [hotels], so the earliest I will have them will be 2023. If the market hasn't recovered by then, the whole world is in much deeper trouble. My view is that demand will return to a new normality with reasonable levels of demand and some alternative sources.
The alternative sources that McCann mentioned could include letting rooms out to college students who will be spending less time on campus and, consequently, may not require full-time accommodation.
Concerned About The Coming Winter
While McCann is optimistic that the hospitality sector will recover from the continuing COVID-19 crisis, he told The Business Post that he is concerned about the coming winter, saying, "We simply don't know from one day to the next. Some days, we could pick up 20% of our business on the day. It is that late. I think we'll be okay for September and October. It's once we get into November and December I get a bit more concerned."
However, McCann stated that "if you had a total lockdown, Dalata can survive that".
Fall In Value Of Assets
In other Dalata news, according to The Irish Independent, the value of the group's assets have fallen by €161 million. This follows last week's news that the group's revenue decreased by 60% year-on-year during the six month period that ended on June 30, 2020.
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