Ireland’s fourth-largest hotel planned for Dublin Airport

A new four-star hotel right beside Dublin Airport's Terminal 2 will create 400 jobs during and after construction, airport operator DAA has announced.

Work on the 11-storey terminal-linked building will begin next October and will have 402 rooms, making it Ireland’s fourth largest hotel.

It will employ 250 people while the build, expected to take 18 months, will create 150 temporary jobs. Planning permission for the development has already been granted and it is expected to be open to the public by 2019.

The DAA has appointed property consultants Savills Hotels & Leisure to seek expressions of interest for the development and operation of the new facility, which will be developed under a Finance, Build Operate and Transfer (FBOT) model.

The successful bidder will construct the hotel and operate it for a specified period of time, before eventually transferring it back to the control of the DAA.

"There is significant demand for a new terminal-linked hotel at Dublin Airport and this development will benefit not just the airport but the city and region as a whole as Dublin needs more hotel beds," said Dublin Airport managing director Vincent Harrison.

Prime site

The new 22,840 square metre property is to occupy a prime 0.8 acre site between Terminal 2 and the T2 multi-storey car park.

Tom Barrett, Ireland director at Savills Hotels & Leisure said that there will likely be significant market demand for development.

“If this hotel was trading today, it would be one of the strongest performing hotels in Ireland,” he said.

“Given the unique high profile location and the quality of the offering we anticipate strong interest from developers, investors, hoteliers and brands.”

In its statement on Thursday, the DAA noted that between 2010 and 2015, only four hotels were built in Dublin, providing just under 600 rooms.

Airport terminal-linked hotels significantly outperform non-linked alternatives in both room rates and occupancy levels, it said.

In 2015, a sample of seven branded European terminal-linked hotels with more than 2,600 bedrooms achieved combined revenue rates per room 47 per cent higher than seven branded hotels located close to the same airports.

Dublin Airport hotels recorded revenue per available room growth of 27 per cent in 2015 and 19 per cent in the nine months to the end of September this year.

Monthly occupancy levels of more than 90 per cent were achieved in four months of 2014, increasing to six months in 2015 and seven months this year, the DAA said.

Demand

Hotels with more than 1,600 bedrooms in the vicinity of Dublin Airport recorded an 98 per cent occupancy rate for September and overall levels of 90 per cent so far this year.

There would appear to be demand for such facilities with Dublin Airport setting a new record for passenger numbers last year at more than 25 million people. Traffic has increased by a further 12 per cent in 2016.