B&B bookings increased by over 20% this year

BED AND breakfast bookings have increased by more than 20 per cent this year in spite of a reduction in the number of visitors to Ireland.

The Town and Country Homes Association, which represents 1,100 bed and breakfasts, attributed the increase to extra interest from continental tour operators and the growth of traffic to its website (www.townandcountry.ie).

“It’s a remarkable turnaround, given that consumer bookings were showing a decline of 30 per cent in January,” association chairwoman Kate Burns said. “In the last two months, online bookings have shot up, so it’s great news.”

Figures from the association show that consumer bookings were up 13 per cent in March compared to the same month last year.

Bookings from tour operators, which account for 80 per cent of BB business, increased by 20 per cent in the same period, while bookings from France rose by 22 per cent and bookings from Germany were up 10 per cent.

“Around 80 per cent of our bookings come from international clients,” she said. “Irish people think BBs are a thing of the past, but this is not the case for French, Dutch or German visitors.”

The figures represented a strong performance for the “reinvigorated sector”, Ms Burns said, given the gloomy wider outlook for tourism in Ireland this year.

Tourism Ireland, which promotes the country overseas, believes visitors to the country overall this year could fall by up to 9 per cent, following a 3 per cent reduction in 2008.

The body is predicting that the reduction, brought about by the economic downturn and the strength of the euro against the dollar, could lead to revenue in the industry falling by some 15 per cent this year.

Ms Burns said that a €400,000 investment in a new IT system by the association was paying dividends and that rooms in some 750 of the BBs can be booked online.

“Customers find the new system easier to use, mainly because it’s live and you can book a whole trip – including stays at different BBs – in one sitting.”

Figures from the Central Statistics Office show the BB sector suffered during the Celtic Tiger years. The number of nights spent in guesthouses and bed and breakfast accommodation by Irish residents fell from 2.2 million to 1.8 million between 2001 and 2005. The sector was also affected by the increase in the number of budget hotels and the fall of the US dollar against the euro.

Ms Burns said that despite the fall-off in nights spent in BBs, the income of the association remained constant.

“Certainly the hotels took a domestic and British trade and a bit of US trade,” she added, “but we have had a decrease in membership of 10 per cent year-on-year in that period, 90 per cent of those would be retirees, so average income per member did not fall, as the decreased membership levelled this out.”