Irish Hotel industry in Crisis? Wonder Why?!!

no1beemerfan

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0806/hotels.html


This on today's rte news.

I think price has a lot to do with it too though! Myself and the girlfriend are going to England for 9 days in Sept and was going to stay in Rosslare for the night as its an early sailing and the cheapest we can get is around €70 for one nights stay......but.....were going to London for one night and the hotel is only £29.95 for one night!!

If they want us to stay in Ireland (staycation? they call it) for flips sake please reduce prices. Needless to say were going to drive down to Rosslare early!

zagmund

I honestly don't think that €70 for a night is bad. It's about what I would expect to pay for a Lodge or Express type room around the country.

I think you will find that you can get rooms in Dublin for about the same as you are paying in London. Occasionally some of the chains have room sales, so if you got a good room in a good hotel for £30 a night in London then you did very well.

Having said all that, I couldn't believe it when I heard the hotel bloke on the radio putting his case this morning. I paraphrase, but broadly it sounded like "We got the tax relief, we've squeezed everything we can, times are bad now and we want to exit the hotel industry but don't want the relief to be clawed back. I mean, who wudda thunk we would have to, you know, live up to our end of the bargain ?"

I don't like seeing businesses going under, people losing their jobs, etc . . . but the breaks are the breaks. How about if all the people with huge mortages started pushing to have the rates reduced because, you know, they didn't see this whole recession yoke coming and they would have stayed with their mammies if someone had told them that rates go up as well as down. Oh, hang on . . .

z

Fratton Fred

I've met several people in the Uk who have just come back from short breaks in Ireland and pretty much without exception, they were shocked at how much it cost them, and that is taking into consideration the crappy exchange rate for brits at the moment.

When the biggest group of visitors to Ireland are finding it expensive, then it can only be bad news for the tourist industry.

I've also met a few people who have been staying in serviced apartments which are working out much cheaper, especially for larger groups. these appear to be apartments in Dubln that the developer can't sell so is putting them out on short term lets. this too can't be good news for hotels.

no1beemerfan

zagmund wrote: »

I honestly don't think that €70 for a night is bad.
z

You must have more money than me then!


I've an English girlfriend and we travel back an forth reguraly and I have to agree with the above on cost of stuff here (eating out/drinks/hotels etc). It is a lot easier to get good deals in the UK.

Berty

I can tell you from a frequent hotel users perspective that hotel prices are coming down quite a lot BUT you have to haggle and no which hotel is doing the best offers in Town.

Somebody / Some hotel is always trying to out do the rest so search them out.

I say this as I sit in a Junior Suite in the 4* Woodlands in Tralee for €55 B&B midweek. Now that is a very good commercial rate and considering it is Kerry in August it is an exceptional rate. Ok, fair enough I was bumped up to the Suite because I am a frequent guest but a standard room for €55 a night with breakfast is GOOD.

I have stayed in the Hilton in Dublin for €80.88 midweek, Maritime in Bantry €75, Clarion in Cork €70, Meyrick Hotel Galway €79, G Hotel Galway €74.59(strange price) etc etc. These are all high end hotels and the rates are exceptional for High Season is exceptional locations.

The prices have come down BUT the prices for services has not. I.e, suppliers prices have changed little like food and drink, staff wages, ESB/GAS/Internet etc etc.

The hotels in a demanding time have to accept lower incomes from Joe Public but has to endure the high costs of running the property because even if we pay €20 a night for a 4* hotel(Normally €120) we will ONLY accept the services of a 4* hotel, to hell with the running costs. This puts the hotels in a strange predicament.

Cut costs, get bad reviews from word of mouth/internet and loss potential guests and current repeat guests, cut wages - impossible as staff are on minimum wage in most cases), attempt to get reduced prices from suppliers - unlikely to have a major impact on their fiscal returns. OR throw in some stealth tax's:

Increase car park price
Charge for the internet
Increase room service tray price by €1
Increase cost of telephone calls
Increase cost of mini bar
Fire maintenance man and replace light bulbs yourself
Stop paying to dry clean staff uniforms
Stop feeding the staff for free


Etc Etc.

We demand value at every opportunity. I only recently decided to stop staying in hotels with facilities I will not use. I will not use the GYM, Conference centre, restaurant or bar(mostly) so why pay big bucks to stay in a hotel with such services.

A B&B will do just fine but If I can get a hotel for the same money then a hotel it is. As I said Im paying €55 for a room in a good hotel. A comparable B&B would be the same if not more money.

The hotel industry will feel the wrath of overloading the country with rooms when the High Season bubble bursts and all they are left with is miserable old me and my counterparts.

Davidth88

no1beemerfan , 30 quid for a hotel in London , wow that is cheap . Where is it , I assume it must be a travel lodge type place in the suburbs somewhere ?

Prices are coming down here for sure . If you tried to get a hotel around Rosslare 18 months ago I bet you would have struggled to get below 100 euro.

Certainly prices here across the board remain above the Uk's prices ( look at rip off ireland forum ).

Without a doubt people from the UK feel fleeced when they come here , I had friends come over who were shocked that we were paying the best part of 5 euro a pint , and 10 euro ( at least ) for any sort of a meal in a pub, go to the UK and you can get a pint ( if you look around ) for 2 pounds , and often a meal at lunch time for 3-4 pounds . ( just check out JD Witherspoon's website ).

I have no idea what the answer is , because hotels are closing left right and centre , this will reduce supply , which I imagine may drive up the price again .

Berty

Davidth88 wrote: »

I have no idea what the answer is , because hotels are closing left right and centre , this will reduce supply , which I imagine may drive up the price again .

Prices are subject to demand and supply was linked to this which is why lots of developers threw up hotels all over the place with little thought to potential undersupply of the industry.

When the amount of rooms on offer in Ireland decreases we may not see prices decrease. The reason for this is possibly in order to make your hotel more attractive to the next is to appeal on price. The days of charging whatever you like because you KNOW you will be full are gone.

The Atlantic hotel in Kilkee Co Clare opened just prior to the 1980's recession and closed leaving a shell of a building in its wake. This was knocked down during the boom period and another very similar looking hotel was built by the Lynch group. I forsee the same fate for this hotel.

gaz wac

Berty wrote: »

I can tell you from a frequent hotel users perspective that hotel prices are coming down quite a lot BUT you have to haggle and no which hotel is doing the best offers in Town.

.

We needed a few hotel rooms for a house party we were holding so i rang the local hotel...180 per night !!! I said i would take four rooms at 100 each or i'd leave it, cos it would be cheaper for guest to get a taxi home. She didnt even have to think about it and she threw in breakfast !!

Everyone is bringing prices down...they will soon follow.

p.s some hotels have amazing mid-weeks specials on at the mo, cant remember the name, but I priced a hotel in Mayo, 5 nights B&B with 5 evening meal €315 !! ( was a golden oldie offer, but when i haggled with them, they agreed )

Ponster

Do Irish hotels still charge per person as opposed to per room ?

Davidth88

Ponster wrote: »

Do Irish hotels still charge per person as opposed to per room ?

Ohh the famous PPS , I hated that .

I have seen this slowly creeping back , however I think people are wise to it now.

All the rooms I have stayed in recently here are per room .

Berty

Its mostly Per Room now because they try to appear cheaper by asking you to add breakfast after they attract your attention initially.

PPS is only another way to reduce the appearance of their rates, its mostly B&Bs who continue this trait.

Some hotels, especially in Dublin & Ballsbridge particularly, have high loading rates on breakfast. The Herbert Park Hotel for example charges €18.50 for a cooked breakfast which is a way of bumping their prices and they(in the last year) started charging for their parking even though it used to be complimentary. For Shame :mad:

Bewleys are the Ryanair of the hotel industry when it comes to hidden charges. Expensive breakfast, expensive parking, expensive bar prices and all their hotel rooms are the same price in all the hotels even though there is a stark difference in standards between properties.

It is not the end of the hotel industry in Ireland its simply a culling of the excess hotels.

The recession like I have always said will seperate the men from the boys when it comes to surviving.

Ponster

Thanks for the info.

I've never toured Ireland with foreign friends without someone making a comment on overpriced hotels and PPS policies. In fact once there were 4 vegetarians out of the 7 people staying in the hotel and so couldn't care less about the wonderful 'free' breakfast and had to put up with cornflakes instead.

It is not the end of the hotel industry in Ireland its simply a culling of the excess hotels.

At the same time what I would live to see in Ireland is a chain of cheap friendly hotels like Formula1 in France. €30 per room (2/3 per room) and found on the outskirts of most towns/airports. Sometimes all you need is a (cheap!) place to crash for the night and in the parts of Ireland that I know it's not always easy to find.

RorTHorN

Prices are high especially when Irish hotels are charging per person sharing. This is ridiculous. The price should be for room only, none of this per person sharing crap. This is just pure greed form the hotel industry

no1beemerfan

Davidth88 wrote: »

no1beemerfan , 30 quid for a hotel in London , wow that is cheap . Where is it , I assume it must be a travel lodge type place in the suburbs somewhere ?

Its in Ibis Hotel at Heathrow Airport. Its Dublin side of London, easy enough to get to and has underground to central London. Price is per room.

Ponster wrote: »

Do Irish hotels still charge per person as opposed to per room ?

All the ones in Rosslare are per person which I find rediculous.

partyguinness

no1beemerfan wrote: »

You must have more money than me then!


I've an English girlfriend and we travel back an forth reguraly and I have to agree with the above on cost of stuff here (eating out/drinks/hotels etc). It is a lot easier to get good deals in the UK.

I am in the same boat with an English g/friend. At least in England I dont feel like I am being ripped off. I bought all my Xmas presents there last year. Far better value.

Slightly off point...I bought this Molton Brown beauty product last Xmas for my mother in England for £36.50 which was around €43.00. The same product was in Brown Thomas in Cork for....wait for it....€85.00. That is double the price.

Needless to say I will be buying all my presents in England again this year.

But the quality of food in Irish pubs and restaurants is far superior and even my English friends will concede that point. We are luky that we dont have pub chains and most pubs/restaurants in Ireland are still privately owned

no1beemerfan

partyguinness wrote: »

But the quality of food in Irish pubs and restaurants is far superior and even my English friends will concede that point. We are luky that we dont have pub chains and most pubs/restaurants in Ireland are still privately owned

I agree with you on that one. And the fact we have newsagents etc. But it doesn't help we pay over the odds on most things. Tourists will eventually spread the word how expensive holidaying here is.

Berty

no1beemerfan wrote: »

Tourists will eventually spread the word how expensive holidaying here is.

I think its a bit late for that. Most tourists know Ireland is expensive but they come here anyway because its something they have always wanted to do.

The Italians are the shrewd ones. They go to Aldi/Lidl and live off that in their hotels.

The marriot in limerick... €200 a night for a bog standard room on a thursday is a tad of a píss take considering you can get the westin Dublin,a 4 minute walk from Grafton st for €159 ....

finbarrk

I wouldn't think €70 for a room in Rosslare is bad. Sounds ok value to me anyway. I wouldn't think the hotel in London at £30 will be great though.

no1beemerfan

finbarrk wrote: »

I wouldn't think €70 for a room in Rosslare is bad. Sounds ok value to me anyway. I wouldn't think the hotel in London at £30 will be great though.

All I'm looking for is a bed for the night....nothing fancy and I've used Ibis plenty of times and they are great value. I for one would not spend €70 a night in Rosslare!!

Berty

no1beemerfan wrote: »

All I'm looking for is a bed for the night....nothing fancy and I've used Ibis plenty of times and they are great value. I for one would not spend €70 a night in Rosslare!!

I pay €75 a night for the Ferrycarrig in Wexford. Now that IS worth it for that neck of the woods.