One intriguing aspect of the strategic review of Aer Rianta is the recommendation that the airport operator sell off the Great Southern Hotels chain, a move that would open up the opportunity for further consolidation in the burgeoning hotel industry.

Aer Rianta has not yet produced its 1998 results and so there are no details yet on GSH's operating performance last year. Suffice to say that GSH will undoubtedly substantially increase the 1997 profits of £2.9 million (€3.68 million), and industry sources believe that the hotel chain's profits last year will be more than £3.5 million.

So what is GSH worth? The terms of the Jurys takeover of Doyle's sets some sort of a marker for hotel takeovers in Ireland, although it must be said that the profile of Great Southern - largely tourist-based and outside Dublin - is markedly different from the city-based and transnational Doyle chain.

Jurys has already indicated that it is not interested in GSH, mainly because of the chain's dependence on tourism and lack of presence in the corporate market. But it is a cast-iron certainty that if GSH is offered for sale - either as a chain or as individual hotels - it will generate substantial interest from home and abroad. And a likely price tag of more than £60 million is unlikely to dissuade, even though the hotel chain currently has £33 million in capital expenditure planned for the next five years.

With Jurys Doyle apparently out of the frame, the two most obvious bidders are the publicly-quoted Ryan Hotels and the family-owned (but venture capital-backed) Fitzpatrick chain.

Add in the possibility of the management putting together a buy-out offer (no shortage of venture capital for MBOs), and it's pretty clear that the domestic sector alone would produce plenty of interest, whatever about international hotel groups keen to get into the currently booming hotel business.