The Dublin Airport Authority is launching an advertising campaign today to facilitate the sale of its Great Southern Hotels Group portfolio which industry sources estimate is worth around €170 million.
The hotels are being offered as an overall lot, as individual lots or as combinations of lots.
The deadline for receipt of tenders is 12 noon, Friday, June 23rd and the sale is expected to go ahead by end August or early September.
There are six four-star and two three-star hotels in the portfolio, which represents a total of 1,054 bedrooms and extensive conference, banqueting and leisure facilities.
It is expected that CIÉ, a former owner of the hotel chain, will try to buy back the Galway Great Southern Hotel on Eyre Square to enhance the property development opportunities of its railway station.
The hotel fronts a CIÉ freight marshalling yard, 14-acre railway station and bus terminus. The addition of the hotel could bring the value of a mixed-use development on the site to €1.5 billion. However, given its central location, it is expected to attract huge interest from the hotel market.
It is also believed CIÉ might make an offer for the Killarney Great Southern Hotel, which sits on 12.4 acres, adjoining a rail station. However, the agent is looking at selling some of the this land off as a separate lot with "obvious development potential subject to planning permission".