Little change out of €300 for a night at the inn in Dublin

The cost of staying at a hotel in the capital has climbed dramatically in recent weeks, and prices are now coming close to matching those recorded at the height of the economic boom.

There is little availability for either Friday or Saturday night of next week in any of the top 10 hotels in Dublin, as ranked by tripadvisor.ie, but many hotels are charging more than €300 for a single night next week.

The cheapest hotel room available at the five-star Merrion Hotel – consistently the top-ranked hotel in Dublin – for Sunday is €295, while the price on Monday falls to €250.

The cheapest rooms at the Marker Hotel for the same two nights are €349 per night, while the price per night for the Croke Park Hotel, the third most popular hotel in the city, again according to Trip Advisor, is €162.

Last month the Trivago Hotel Price Index for June confirmed Dublin hotel prices have soared, with rates up by 26 per cent compared to this time last year, The average rate was put at €167 a night. Across Europe, the average year-on-year increase was 7 per cent.

High demand

The

Irish Hotel Federation

has defended the summer prices and said next weekend’s price spike was driven by high demand from

Northern Ireland

, where July 12th is a public holiday, and by an international molecular biology conference taking place in the National Convention Centre the same weekend.

“Rates have gone up, certainly, but they fell very sharply during the bust and this is just a necessary correction,” said Stephen McNally, the president of the hotel lobby group.