Hotel closes due to tourism downturn

THE POWERSCOURT Arms Hotel in Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, has closed down and will hold a creditors meeting in Dublin next week.

The hotel, which is located in the centre of the tourist town and employs approximately 12 people, shut down on Sunday evening.

It is understood that the company operating the hotel ran into difficulty as a result of the downturn in tourism and fall in domestic consumer spending.

A notice in the Daily Starnewspaper yesterday indicated that a meeting of creditors would be held for Powerscourt Arms Hotel (Enniskerry) Ltd in the Stillorgan Park Hotel, Co Dublin, at 9am on Wednesday, August 26th.

The meeting is being held in accordance with sections 266-268 of the Companies Act. This part of the Companies Act involves the appointment of a liquidator for the purposes of winding up a company.

According to documents filed at the Companies Office, the directors of the Powerscourt Arms Hotel (Enniskerry) are Pádraig Blighe and Michael Doyle.

Mr Blighe and Mr Doyle have also been directors of the Dolmen Hotel Group Limited, which has operated the Dolmen Hotel in Carlow, since 2000.

The Powerscourt Arms Hotel (Enniskerry) was incorporated in February 2007.

Its company accounts show that as of February 2008, it owed creditors €68,721, a sum that exceeded its assets by €18,178. The company’s registered address has now switched to that of its auditors, Cronin Company.

The site of the Powerscourt Arms Hotel was sold for €8 million, some €3 million above the guide price, at the height of the property boom in December 2005 to property developer Michael Murphy of South Dublin Construction.

A site adjacent to the hotel had been zoned for redevelopment and in September 2007, Mr Murphy applied to Wicklow County Council for planning permission to build an apartment complex next to the hotel.

However, since then the property market has collapsed, while global tourism has declined sharply, leaving many hoteliers in financial difficulty. Enniskerry, “gateway to the garden of Ireland” according to the official website for the town, is a popular pit-stop with overseas tourists and Sunday drivers because of its proximity to the Powerscourt estate and other visitor attractions.

However, data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) shows that overseas visitors to Ireland have plunged 15 per cent over the 12 months to June, while spending by Irish residents on domestic trips was down 10 per cent in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same period last year.

Meanwhile, the volume of bar sales over the 12 months to June has fallen almost 13 per cent, according to the CSO’s retail sales index.