IT WAS a chance for Ireland’s struggling hoteliers to “have their say”, according to the organisers. And what the hotel owners and managers who travelled to the Grand Hotel, in Malahide, Co Dublin, for the Irish Hotel Federation (IHF) crisis meeting had to say centred on the one burden that was common to them all: “crippling” local authority rates.
The emergency summit of 200-plus hoteliers yesterday had been called to discuss the long-term “orderly reduction” of capacity in the sector, which the IHF believes has 10,000-12,000 excess hotel rooms. It was also held to reinforce its call for State-guaranteed overdraft facilities for “viable” hotels that are failing to meet onerous credit requirements imposed by the banks.
But such was the anger among its members about “exorbitant” local authority rates, according to the IHF, that it is now calling for an immediate 30 per cent reduction in the charges paid to local authorities by all hotels and guesthouses across the State. The 30 per cent reduction would be in line with the recent result of a revaluation of hotels and guesthouses in the South Dublin County Council area completed by the Valuation Office.
The IHF said this reduced rate should apply until all local authority areas had completed their revaluation processes. It was agreed in 2001 that these revaluation processes would take place.
“Hotels and guesthouses are being penalised by an antiquated taxation system of commercial rates that sees local authorities extract taxes relative to the size of premises without any recourse to the level of turnover or overheads of the business,” said IHF president Matthew Ryan, who is also managing director of the Grand Hotel. “I think there has to be a realisation out there that there is no more money left to collect,” he added.
IHF chief executive John Power said the hotels sector paid around €92 million a year in rates, just under 7 per cent of the total local authority rates base.
“There is support overall for what we’re doing, but the level of anger and frustration and inability to pay and worry about local authority rates is the biggest issue on the ground,” Mr Power said.
A 100-bedroom hotel is charged between €150,000 and €200,000 a year in local rates, he said.
“This is a practical ‘now’ issue. The level of anger that is out there is palpable. And I would worry very much that if something like this wouldn’t happen, local authorities would have a terribly difficult time collecting rates,” he said.
