Clarion Hotels buys Holiday Inn

The Holiday Inn beside Dublin airport has been acquired by Clarion Hotels Ireland in a deal believed to be worth about €34 million.

The 247-room property is being acquired from the major international hotel company the Intercontinental Hotel group. Clarion will now spend about €4 million refurbishing the property and it may seek to build extra floors in the coming years.

The hotel is believed to have an annual turnover of €12 million, with much of its business coming from air passengers staying overnight before their flights.

In recent years, however, it has faced increased competition with the Hilton Group opening a new hotel near the airport. The Great Southern Group also operates a hotel directly across the road from the Holiday Inn.

The purchase of the Holiday Inn gives some indication of the value of the Great Southern property. However, while the Dublin Airport Authority would like to sell some of the Great Southern hotels, the Government has so far refused to support this idea. The Great Southern at Dublin Airport is believed to be one of the most profitable of its nine hotels in the Republic. The Clarion group now has six hotels in the Irish market, but this is its first acquisition.

The main shareholder in the Clarion Group is builder Paddy Kelly, while the property developers, the McCormack family, are the second largest shareholders. The remaining shares are held by the management team at the Clarion. The acquisition comes into effect immediately.

The hotel was designed by Dublin architect Sam Stephenson in 1971. According to a statement from Clarion: "Over the next couple of months a renovation programme will be undertaken to bring the existing property up to the Clarion brand standard. The hotel will remain fully operational during this period. Furthermore the 200 full and part-time staff will not be affected by the acquisition."

A spokesman said the refurbishment would not concentrate on rooms, which were of a good standard, but on other facilities at the property. Earlier this year Clarion Hotels opened hotels in Cork, Sligo and Liffey Valley making the Irish-owned group the fastest growing four-star hotel operator in the country with a total of six properties.

Brendan Curtis, group operations director said: "We will develop this hotel in line with our proven business model. This property offers our brand a unique highly visible location with fantastic future potential for growth and development."

The management team of Clarion Hotels also manage the Morrison Hotel and Carton House Golf and Spa Resort.

A statement said the company would explore opportunities in Belfast and many UK locations over the next 12 months.