Harcourt Developments, a hotel group founded by Donegal-born developer Pat Doherty, is seeing the benefits of “McIlroymania” already with a “threefold increase” in bookings for the British Open golf championship at Royal Portrush in Co Antrim in the two weeks after the Irish golfer’s US Masters win. The Open takes place between July 17th and July 20th.
“In the two weeks after Rory had achieved his great success we saw a three-fold increase in bookings‚” said the hotel group’s chief operating officer Clement Gaffney. While the group’s Redcastle Hotel had an existing corporate booking for all of its rooms he said there was a surge in bookings at its other hotels in Ulster.
“Rory has shone great light on Ulster, and on the Open, which benefits the entire region. It has been fantastic, it has been very positive since Rory won.”
Even before the McIlroy’s successes the Harcourt Collection of hotels had a “buoyant start to the year”, seeing group revenues rise by 10 per cent in the first quarter of 2025 over the same period last year.
The group’s Ulster-based properties Lough Eske Castle, Redcastle Hotel and Spa, and Titanic Hotel Belfast, have been “standout performers”, the company said with 16 per cent revenue growth year-on-year in the first three months of the year.
100 days of Trump: “It’s like The Karate Kid, tax on, tax off, tariffs on, tariffs off”
Hospitality industry groups have recently questioned tourism figures released by the Central Statistics office (CSO) showing significant reductions in spending and tourists in Ireland, with industry chiefs set to meet with the national statistics office on the matter.
“I’ve been following it with great interest,” the Harcourt chief operating officer said, but noted their hotels hadn’t seen any reductions in visitors to their properties. Instead, he said, “our hotels, our bed nights, our revenue, our rooms occupied, our occupancy, and rates, they have all shown very stable extended growth”.
Despite concerns that the number of tourists coming to Ireland could be affected by US tariffs and global economic uncertainty, Mr Gaffney said the hotel group was “not seeing a drop-off in the number of US tourists coming to Ireland”, with North American guests expected to account for more than 60 per cent of stays during the summer.
Instead, they are “seeing very nice steady growth – recent growth - in Canadian business at our Caribbean property”, Carlisle Bay in Antigua, as the country’s tourism to its southern neighbour cools.
The group recently announced a planned €5 million upgrade of its five-star Lough Eske Castle hotel in Co Donegal which grew its room count by 28 per cent. This investment, Mr Gaffney said, has returned a 23 per cent growth in revenue for the hotel in the first quarter.
There is more investment to come, Mr Gaffney said, with Harcourt Developments set to commence construction of a 155-bed four star hotel in Liverpool and are looking at “further development opportunities” in Belfast near their existing Titanic Hotel.
He said the Titanic Hotel in Belfast was “trading at a very high occupancy on a consistent basis, which is a great achievement. What we want to do now is unlock further development in Belfast to capitalise and build on that”.
