Hotel

New Hotels Needed For Dublin

By Publications Checkout
New Hotels Needed For Dublin

The chief executive of the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation, Eamonn McKeon, has said that Dublin needs around 30 new hotels or approximately 5,000 extra bedrooms within the next six years.

These rooms are needed by 2020 to cope with the expected growth in tourism and business travel. However, the locations of these hotels is key as currently there are hotels in some places visitors don't want to be, which are failing to attract business.

Speaking to the Irish Independent, McKeon said "Tourists want to be in the city centre. The scarcity is in the central Dublin 1, 2 and 4 areas. People who have travelled want to be able to walk."

In keeping with the two-speed recovery, Dublin hotels are far busier than those elsewhere in the country, with hotels in the midlands and east particularly lagging behind. There has been an increase in hotel purchases over the summer but McKeon believes that significant levels of new building are unlikely in the next couple of years and that hotel owners are fearful of building new rooms as the hotel industry is only just recovering.

ITIC has called on the government to provide for capital investment in the sector in 2015 in the upcoming budget and to provide a capital fund for tourism between 2016 and 2020.

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