Malmaison group seeks Dublin site

BOUTIQUE HOTELS:One of Britain's best-known boutique hotel chains is looking for a site to set up a new hotel in Dublin. The Malmaison and Hotel du Vin (Malmaison/HduV) group, which owns 26 properties in the UK, including the luxury Malmaison hotel in Belfast, is currently seeking to acquire or lease a property, most likely an existing hotel, in Dublin.

It has also entered into an agreement with the Shannon College of Hotel Management to recruit many of its graduates for overseas for its chain of hotels. Its chief executive Robert Cook said the time was right to open a new hotel in Dublin despite the well-documented problems of the tourism industry, which include oversupply, declining visitor numbers and competition from zombie hotels.

“Our argument would be that we are at the bottom of the economic cycle so that’s a good time to go looking at things,” he said. “We are looking at distressed opportunities. We certainly will not be putting any more bedrooms into Dublin that’s for sure. There is a deal out there to be done. “Dublin is a city that will love a Malmaison or Hotel du Vin. It’s a party city with a fun-loving public – a perfect fit for our brands.”

He said the initial plan was to source a 100- to 150-bed hotel. The site would determine whether it was a Malmaison hotel, which are usually situated in city centres and are orientated towards the business traveler, or the more visitor-orientated Hotel du Vin chain which tend to be town house-type hotels and bistros.

Cook said he anticipated being able to open one of the hotels within an 18-month to two-year timeframe and a team is looking at locations. A second hotel would follow depending on economic circumstances.

The group recently held a welcome party in the Residence in St Stephen’s Green where it announced its expansion plans and sought to highlight its existing hotel chain. Its Malmaison Hotel in Belfast is a converted seed warehouse which used to be the McCausland Hotel. The company has earned a reputation for imaginative refurbishments of existing buildings such as the conversion of an Episcopalian church in Glasgow into a hotel and a prison in Oxford.

Cook also announced a strategic partnership with the Shannon College of Hotel Management to recruit its graduates for overseas. Management from Malmaison/HduV will be visiting Dublin in November to interview prospective candidates.

“It’s a fantastic hotel school with an international reputation. We are now looking at international expansion into the likes of Paris and Venice and in the United States and we believe this would be a perfect fit,” he said.