Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media | Extent to which sufficient hotel bed space is available

To ask the Minister for Tourism; Culture; Arts; Gaeltacht; Sport and Media the extent to which hotel bed spaces continue to remain sufficiently available throughout Dublin city and greater areas with a view to ensuring that tourists and those seeking hotel accommodation are not pressured into paying exorbitant prices; and if she will make a statement on the matter.

REPLY

The distorting effect of the pandemic makes it difficult to definitively assess the long-term supply and demand equation within tourist accommodation but there does seem to be a clear need for more short-term accommodation supply specifically in Dublin. The hotel occupancy rate in Dublin is now one of the highest in Europe, driven by a range of factors.  

There are just over 22,300 registered hotel rooms in Dublin. Another 3,500 are expected to come on stream over the next two years. It will be important that Dublin is a capital city that can cater for all types of visitors with quality and value choices to suit different budgets.  For the past number of years Fáilte Ireland has been working to encourage both the development of, and positive conditions for, the development of hotels in Dublin through sharing their evidence-based analysis and through their role as a prescribed body in the planning process.

Neither my Department nor Fáilte Ireland have control over prices set by service providers within the tourism industry. Each operator decides on their level of charges having regard to their costs and the requirement to make an adequate return on their investment.

We all want to see the return of a sustainable and vibrant tourism sector and I stress that it is important that businesses maintain a long term perspective on competitiveness and value for money.