Rooms for €1 at west Cork hotels

IRISH TOURISM:NINE HOTELS in the west Cork town of Clonakilty, including Inchydoney Lodge and Spa and the Celtic Ross Hotel, are offering guests rooms at the nominal price of €1 a night.

Visitors wishing to avail of the offer must apply online between 8am and 8pm on March 1st and 100 successful applicants will be chosen at random and allocated a hotel. The initative is being launched to mark the reintroduction of the Cork-Swansea ferry service, and to promote a town that has suffered a significant drop in visitor numbers in recent years.

The idea for the offer came from Jim Daly in the local Chamber of Tourism, as hotels in the region saw bookings drop between 25 and 50 per cent since the withdrawal of the ferry service three years ago. “As a Chamber of Tourism we are conscious of the serious downturn in visitors to west Cork and the Clonakilty area in particular,” he said. “This offer had the twin ambition of promoting the website for the area and attracting visitors. The promotion has an element of the Ryanair feel to it, I suppose.”

Daly says that while visitors will get a room for one night for €1, the hope is that many will opt for a longer stay. “It’s the first time we have had the hotels in the area come together like this. It will give an immediate boost to the area by having extra visitors in the town for the month of March. We’re hoping many might stay extra nights, or have a meal in the town. It’s exposure for us locally and helps attract visitors who might not visit ordinarily.”

Teresa O’Neill, of Fernhill House Hotel, says business is down about 25 per cent last year, and the coming together of the hotels in the region is a sign of the times. “The recession has meant less movement of people, definitely. People are not travelling as much and we are feeling the effects. We notice also that company reps are not staying as much so the impact of the recession is being felt right across the board.”

Ruth McCarthy, marketing manager at the Inchydoney Spa and Lodge, says the past 12 months have been difficult for everybody. She says that while the hotel has been slow to lower its rates, instead focusing on added extras such as meals and treatments, the current offer makes sense for all. “We got on board as it is hard to market just one hotel. If you market a destination, that benefits everybody.”