Madam, – In light of the concerns expressed by the hotel industry of late at the drastic fall in its business, my own experiences might shed some light on the source of their problems.
At the height of the Celtic Tiger, I had a need to stay overnight in Dublin on a Saturday and phoned the cheapest hotel chain to book. While their standard rates were being quoted in ads on the radio, the price I was quoted for that one night was three-and-a-half times that amount. When I queried it, I was told that there was an international rugby match on that weekend and when I pushed it further, the girl on the phone told me that they were charging that amount, “because they could”.
So I decided to drive from Cork, do my business and then find a cheaper alternative on the Dublin-Cork road later that evening. On the way back, I stopped at a hotel, confirmed it had a room, agreed the rate and then as I passed over my credit card, I thought to confirm that it was a smoking room. The receptionist tossed my card back and said, “We don’t cater for your kind here”.
Our hotels are victims of their own greed and arrogance. We all have a story about tea and a scone costing €6 and more. Well, while they made hay while the sun shone, they now have to confront the current reality. It appears that we don’t wish to be ripped off any longer. Our overseas visitors are voting with their wallets also. In survey after survey, overseas visitors list the Irish people as the prime attraction here. But as we know, you would have great difficulty finding an Irish worker in a hotel in Ireland. The reason for that is simple. At the very time their businesses were booming like never before, our hotels hired poor low-cost Eastern Europeans to maximise their profits.
On the plus side, however, I have every confidence that our hotels will survive, given the amounts of money that they must already have banked.
Perhaps while they survive on their ill-gotten profits, they might reflect on a complete change of attitude so as to avail of the upturn when it comes. – Yours, etc,