Westport businesses feel the pinch after reduction in tourist hotel beds

Business owners and local representatives in the Westport area have said it is no surprise that towns in which tourism is a major source of revenue and jobs have been substantially impacted by the reduction in available hotel beds.

In a document dealing with the impact of the bed shortage on 20 towns, Government ministers were told last week that some €30 million and almost 900 jobs had been displaced in the Co Mayo town. Up to 1,100 displaced Ukrainians are estimated to be staying in the Westport area, with many in hotel accommodation.

All of those who spoke to The Irish Times last week expressed support for the policy of welcoming people fleeing the war. Yet there was widespread concern over the continued reliance on hotels to provide the bulk of their accommodation and the resultant impact on the number of beds available for tourists as the critically important summer season approaches.

Cian Hayes, whose restaurant, Cian’s, was successfully repurposed from fine dining to an upmarket burger place during Covid restrictions in 2020, said a fall-off in numbers last summer had contributed to his decision during the winter to close permanently. This lead to a loss of about 10 full-time jobs and a similar number of part-time positions.

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A quieter summer last year left him wondering whether to reopen in 2023, and he finally decided against it, opting instead to focus on his second restaurant in Castlebar, which is not tourism dependent.

“I had the best location in Westport, right where the buzz was, but it felt much quieter last summer and the season seemed even shorter than usual,” he said.

Stressing that he was speaking solely on the basis of his own impression, he said the reduced number of tourist beds has made itself felt. “It was just a different kind of dynamic, at six or seven in the evening there was nobody on the streets and you have to make a lot of your money for the year in that short time.”

Eoghan O’Meara Walsh of the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation said the organisation predicted the problem would arise if the Government did not source a range of accommodation to house displaced Ukrainian citizens and international protection (IP) applicants around the country.

The most recent figures indicated that 35 per cent of hotel beds outside of Dublin are contracted to the Government to accommodate the two groups. This is substantially impacting not just the hotel sector but also “downstream” businesses such as bars, restaurants and attractions that rely on spending by tourists.

Fáilte Ireland has estimated this lost revenue at €1.1 billion and the organisation is one of a number looking at ways in which affected business might be supported.

“I have to say that it’s not a compulsory purchase order that Government is imposing on tourism accommodation providers, so hotels are signing the contracts willingly,” said Mr O’Meara Walsh. “And in many ways it’s an attractive deal for hotels because they can guarantee 12-month 100 per cent occupancy.

“But those downstream tourism businesses – everything from gift shops to tourist attractions to culture and restaurants, anything that would normally get a lot of tourism trade – if they can show that because a high percentage of tourist beds are gone and their turnover is negatively impacted, they have absolutely every right to some sort of mitigation funds from Government because the market has effectively been pulled from under them through no fault of their own.”

A number of councillors said the impact of the current bed shortage was clear and that they back the introduction of supports for impacted business owners. They also said the local authority had been too slow to source accommodation other than hotels.

[ Killarney traders seek fresh thinking on accommodation amid bed shortage ]

Christy Hyland, chair of the Westport and Belmullet Municipal Council, said a council-owned building that formerly housed nuns in the town was an example of the sort of facility that should be invested in. “For a very small portion of what is now being spent it could be brought into use, but it’s sitting there empty.”

Peter Flynn of Fine Gael, meanwhile, said that “while tourist properties were fine as a short-term solution, no thought was given to a medium- or long-term solutions. Mayo County Council owns a very significant property portfolio of vacant and derelict properties which should and could have been repurposed into accommodation.”