Cork hotel industry optimistic despite tough 2021

CLAYTON Cork city General Manager Conor O’Toole said his staff are “mostly optimistic” about 2022 despite pessimistic statistics from the Irish Hotel Federation (IHF).

Across Ireland, more than nine million bed nights were lost in 2021 when compared to 2019, rising to 19 million bed nights lost when 2020 is also included. The survey of hotels and guesthouses nationwide further reveals that average annual turnover almost halved (48%) in 2021.

Nationally, hotels and guest houses registered an average occupancy of just 33% in 2021 compared to 73% in 2019, with Dublin City seeing an even steeper decrease at just 25% occupancy. Average hotel room occupancy for the first two months of 2022 stood at just 38%, compared to 63% for the same period in 2019. Looking to the key summer months, forward bookings stand at just 39% for this year, compared with an average occupancy of 88% for the same period in 2019.

Mr O’Toole said the World Health Organisation (WHO) has forecasted that the pandemic will end this year but many countries including Ireland have already lifted most restrictions or are in the process of doing so.

“Staff recruitment and retention will be a key issue in the coming months as demand slowly builds up to pre-pandemic levels.” 

Mr O’Toole said that increased concerts and matches will aid recovery, but said the 9% percent tourism VAT rate absolutely needs to be retained.

IHF President Elaina Fitzgerald Kane said, at the annual IHF conference, that while green shoots of recovery are emerging, recovery to 2019 levels is likely to be a number of years away.

“The past two years have been the most challenging in the history of Ireland’s hotel and guesthouse sector. IHF members, and indeed the entire tourism and hospitality sector, saw most of their business vanish overnight. 

"While domestic tourism and ‘staycations’ enabled many businesses to keep their heads above water, average occupancy for 2021 was just 33%. International visitors – the heartbeat of Ireland’s tourism industry, with more €7.25 billion in foreign exchange earnings in 2019 – slowed to a trickle.

Mrs Fitzgerald Kane said the scale of the decimation of the entire sector is unprecedented.

“Whilst we are optimistic for the future, the pace of recovery is disappointingly slow. Our research shows that for January and February this year we are down almost a million bednights compared to the first two months of 2019. 

"For the critical holiday months (June-Sept), current hotel and guesthouse room bookings for 2022 are way below par averaging 39% compared to an average occupancy of 88% for the same period in 2019. This highlights the scale of the ground to be made up in advance of the summer.” 

Ms. Fitzgerald Kane said that despite concerns on the slow uptake in bookings this year, the hotel sector was resilient and would recover in time, but that it urgently required support and interventions at national level to control spiraling businesses costs.