Room service: Kilkenny and South East’s hotels best at beating Covid blues

This snapshot of the hospitality business is revealed in two surveys, one of which shows that local hotels have the highest average room occupancy in the country.

The survey for the Irish Hotels Federation found that, in July, the average room occupancy rate for hotels in the South East stood at 63%.

The next best rate (57%) was in the West. The average national room occupancy was 42% but for Dublin city and county the average rate was only 17 %.

Another survey, based on average weekly booking revenue, revealed higher occupancy rates but still showed Dublin to be struggling, with rates  of around 30%, compared with more than 90% occupancy elsewhere.

It showed that regional centres or ‘destination’ locations, such as Kilkenny, Waterford, Sligo and Galway, are doing best.

The data was captured by P3 Hotels, which provides booking engine software for more than 250 hotels and hotel groups in Ireland and the UK.

P3’s data, which is based on all completed bookings, is a good indicator of demand because it reflects both current and future bookings, as opposed to the occupancy rate alone, which in many cases is limited by Covid  restrictions.

P3 found that for a four-week period from 22 June to 19 July, average weekly booking revenue outside Dublin was up on the rate recorded in January, which was a strong month for hotel bookings.  By contrast, Dublin city centre locations were down by 51%.

P3 CEO Phelim Pekaar said: “The level of bookings hotels receive in January and July is normally very similar. This year, January was a strong month for bookings so for regional hotels to be beating those levels in June/July shows the favourable impact that domestic tourists are having this summer.”

PHOTO: The Springhill Court Hotel, Kilkenny