Hoteliers and restaurateurs confirm rise in tourists

HOTELIERS AND restaurateurs have said latest Central Statistics Office figures showing a rise in the number of overseas visitors are being reflected on the ground.

However, they cautioned the tourism trade was only recovering some of the lost business from previous years, and industry players still had to overcome huge challenges to becoming profitable again.

Paul Gallagher, manager of Buswells Hotel in Dublin city centre, said there were significantly more Americans and Europeans around than in previous years, but there appeared to be no great increase in visitor numbers from the UK.

He said profit was “difficult to achieve in any significant way” as bars and restaurants in hotels were not benefiting from the kind of spend they once experienced –because disposable income was down so much.

He said the slight increase in numbers of British visitors came against the backdrop of a huge fall in UK tourist numbers since 2007. “It doesn’t look like we are going to recover that market, and that’s worrying,” he said.

Michael Vaughan of the Lodge Hotel, in Lahinch, Co Clare, said trade from the United States was up by 15 per cent in the midwest.

He said there was a definite return of confidence among US visitors, but some were getting “skittish” about 2012.

Like other hoteliers, he said the British market had “failed to materialise” in the west of Ireland in general, though continental visitor numbers were strong. “There is cause for optimism, but there is no celebratory mood in the industry,” he said.

Paul Gill, manager of the Claregalway Hotel in Co Galway, said there has “definitely been a big influx” around Galway and Connemara of US visitors, while those from the Continent seemed “to be holding their own”.

He said yields were still very low, however, and many rooms were being sold below cost.

He cited the example of one hotelier who was offering bed, breakfast and dinner for €29 simply to get the business of one tour operator.

The problem was most acute in rural hotels where business was frequently dead between Monday to Thursday.

Bill Kelly, owner of Kelly’s hotel in Rosslare, Co Wexford, said they were almost 100 per cent occupied for July and August.

He had noticed a doubling of UK visitor numbers to his hotel over the summer, though this group did not constitute a huge percentage of the establishment’s business.

He believed the Government had made the right moves in reducing costs in the tourism industry, but said it was being undermined by “exorbitant” increases in air fares of about 50 per cent in the last two years.

Brian Fallon, proprietor of Fallon’s Bar Cafe in Kilcullen, Co Kildare, said there were “definite green shoots” in the restaurant business.

He said tourists were making up for the decline in spend in the domestic market, with restaurants being particularly hard hit as a result of the decline in disposable income.

Though restaurants appeared to be busy, many were pricing themselves below cost to get the business in, he said.

Gregans Castle in Co Clare, which recently won Food & Winemagazine's restaurant of the year award, has reported an upsurge in overseas visitors this year.

Dublin restaurateur and Michelin-star chef Kevin Thornton said he had seen quite a few more visitors from North America this year.

He believed top end restaurants such as his were now cheaper on average than their European equivalents.

“There has been an upsurge in business in August, but you can’t get carried away,” he added. “I’ve been in this business 21 years and there are ups and downs all the time.”