Budget hotels make most of visitor boom

Until quite recently, Dublin was a very expensive place to visit if you didn't have someone to stay with. Demand for hotel beds grew rapidly as the number of tourists coming here doubled and many hoteliers took the opportunity to jack up their prices.

But if there were only 4,500 hotel rooms in Dublin in 1991, there are 9,000 today an increase of 100 per cent according to Dublin Tourism. Guest houses and bed and breakfasts are also increasing capacity; in 1991 there were 1,300, there are now 2,450.

Even the self-catering sector of the city's accommodation market, often used by business people staying more than a week or two, is booming. The number of rooms available rose from 260 in 1991 to 1,350 in 1997.

Including all types of paid accommodation, room capacity in Dublin was 6,800 in 1991. By 1997 it had reached 14,200, a jump of almost 110 per cent.

Domestic and international companies are building even more capacity; industry planners say the capital will have more than 10,300 hotel rooms available by 2000.

As well as newly-built hotels aimed at the middle and upper price range - such as the Alexander, the Stakis or the Merrion - Dublin is now seeing the arrival of economy hotels. In just a couple of years, the city has seen several of these open their doors, between them offering visitors from at home and abroad more than 1,000 beds at prices well under £100 a night. A similar pattern has emerged outside the capital although the rate of development has not been as swift.

Typically, these hotels have around 150 bedrooms, and charge a flat rate for the room, not per person. They are fully-equipped, with televisions, telephones and their own bathrooms. They tend to be located away from the prime retail areas of the city - either on the outskirts of town near the ring-road or within walking distance but not along the well-worn tourist path.

"In other European cities, most of these economy hotels are on the periphery, driven by the proximity to the motorway system," says Mr Frank Magee, chief executive of Dublin Tourism. "But really, while we have the tourism, we don't have anywhere near the same-size populations."

Nonetheless, even the out-of-town market is growing. Ibis, the French hotel chain that forms part of the Accor network, has opened a 150-room hotel on the Naas Road, aiming to funnel off thousands of business people who would otherwise drive on into the centre of Dublin.

Campbell Bewley's runs a similar hotel nearby under the Bewley's name; it has 165 bedrooms. The company is planning to operate another budget hotel aimed at the city centre market. The chairman of the company, Mr Patrick Campbell, says he will not reveal any details for the moment but plans the venture for somewhere in Dublin 4.

Meanwhile, Jurys Inn - the low-budget venture from the Jurys hotel group - continues to fill its 420-odd rooms in the centre of Dublin. Mr Peter Malone, the managing director of the group, says the two Jurys Inn hotels in Dublin - one at Christchurch, the other at the Custom House - are aimed at customers who are paying their own way.

In a recent interview, Mr Malone said the budget hotels are profitable, and predicted that they would not suffer as much in an economic downturn as those in other locations.

Other hotels, such as the Mespil on the banks of Dublin's Grand Canal near Baggot Street, are competing in the same market. Again, their focus is on people who must travel without an expense account.

Bord Failte continues to attract more and more tourists to the State; there were more than five million last year and most spent some time in Dublin. And while the agency is quite open about targeting "quality" (ie. High-spending) rather than "quantity" visitors, the demand in the city for decent hotel rooms at a reasonable cost will remain high.

Industry observers say the city is still under-served by its current number of economy hotels, and predict growth in this area over the next five years at an even higher rate than in the medium-price or expensive hotel markets.