Budget 2025 'an opportunity for government' to help businesses battling with 'government imposed high costs'

Hotel owners are hopeful that meaningful supports for independent Irish businesses will be a large part of Budget 2025, and that the measures will offset the challenges the sector has been hit with.

Michael Magner, owner of the Vienna Woods told The Echo “we are being told that the government parties are pro-business and pro-SME, so as we move forward to Budget 2025, they must ensure that there’s a proper set of conditions sustain SMEs.

“Hospitality and tourism costs have increased hugely year on year, far outstripping the rate of inflation, and costs still remain extremely high.” Mr Magner, who is President of the Irish Hotels Federation explained “we need to ensure that the product is an affordable price for the consumer, both domestic and international.” 

“While the visitor numbers to the country are on par with last year, as we leave the summer and go into the winter, we rely so much on domestic market to keep us ticking over.

“The consumers have less money in their pockets so demand for hospitality businesses have fallen. Many are not able to operate seven days now.” 

The hotel sector provides employment to thousands of Cork people, with the tourism industry being unique in that 70% of tourism jobs are outside of Dublin. It also and has an important role to play in visitor experience, he said, adding “unlike an FDI company, we won’t up and relocate to another country if the terms and conditions aren’t right.”

Budget 2025 is “an opportunity for government” to help Irish businesses battling with “government imposed high costs” to revisit some of these costs, he said.

The reduction of the food VAT to 9% would be an excellent help to the hotel industry he said, explaining that costs have gotten so high now anyway that even the reduced VAT would still be an increase from what the government was making in 2018.

As well as this, Mr Magner and the IHF are calling for additional funding for recruitment and training, and targeted funding for a national hotel retrofitting scheme to reduce carbon footprint.

“You have to be optimistic about budgets, particularly when we hear the government say they’re listening to us - but any supports they introduce must be meaningful enough to ensure businesses are protected in long run - I’d be concerned the measures won’t go far enough.”