IRELAND’S HOTEL room prices came down by 26 per cent in the first six months of this year, the steepest fall in prices in any European country when compared with the same period last year.
The Hotels.com price index found that the average price paid for a hotel room in Ireland between January and June was €80, compared with €108 in the same period in 2008.
This makes Ireland the least expensive western European country for hotel rooms and the fourth cheapest in Europe. In eastern Europe, Poland (€73), Hungary (€71) and the Czech Republic (€71) recorded the lowest hotel room prices.
The Hotels.com index tracks real prices paid for a hotel room rather than advertised rates. It is based on prices paid by customers for 78,000 hotels across 13,000 locations around the world.
Other European countries to experience significant price drops were Norway and Austria, where room prices fell by 24 per cent and 23 per cent respectively.
European prices were down 16 per cent on average, with every European country seeing a drop in room prices. World hotel prices fell by 17 per cent and are now back at 2004 levels.
This was by far the most significant movement in prices seen in the hotel industry in the five years that the hotel price index had been published, said David Roche, president of Hotels.com Worldwide.
Travellers paid on average over one-sixth less for their hotel room in the first half of 2009 than in the same period one year before.
He said the significant price reductions here meant that Dublin and Ireland offered “remarkably good value” for travellers looking for stays within the euro zone.
The survey found that Galway remained the most expensive of the major Irish cities, with a room costing on average €110 a night, compared with €76 in Dublin. This makes Galway hotel rooms more expensive than in cities such as London, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Rome and Madrid.
Cork was the second most expensive city despite hotel prices falling by 33 per cent in the period surveyed. It cost €79 a night on average to stay in Cork during the first half of 2009. Limerick remained the least expensive city in Ireland with a hotel room costing €65 on average.
Mr Roche said the dampening effect of falling consumer demand had been compounded by sharply increased hotel capacity.
“In the first half of 2009, an ever larger number of hotel rooms chased a dwindling stream of customers and this double whammy lowered prices by 17 per cent globally,” he said.
Globally, prices in Latin America were hardest hit, down 18 per cent year-on-year. The swine flu outbreak, which started in Mexico in April, was partly to blame. North America and Asia were down by a similar proportion, falling 17 per cent in 12 months.
