There is not a single hotel room available in Dublin for under €350 for either of the nights of the Taylor Swift concerts next summer according to an online booking website, the Dáil has been told.
Independent TD Thomas Pringle said that in recent days there has been “rampant price gouging” from Dublin hotels, with some raising the price of a room €359 to €999 for the night of the concert, “and this is before tickets have even been released”.
Mr Pringle said he had looked at prices on booking.com while adding it was not just hotels who were guilty of price gouging and that one landlord was charging €20,000 for a two-bedroom apartment for the same weekend.
Taylor Swift is due to perform at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin on June 28th and 29th in 2024, with tickets going on sale next month.
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Mr Pringle said he was highlighting the Taylor Swift concerts in particular as the US singer has a lot of young fans who couldn’t travel independently and who would require adult supervision.
The Donegal TD said sadly the situation was not new or unique, and that price gouging had been an issue with “almost every live event that has taken place in recent years from concerts to Ireland games to GAA finals”.
He said it affected all music and sports fans, but rural fans in particular were most impacted and price gouging was “yet again an example of the immense greed and selfishness that has taken hold in this country and which is completely unacceptable and unscrupulous during this cost of living crisis”.
Mr Pringle said the Government had to take action instead of “just talking nicely” to hoteliers.
[ How Taylor Swift could cause Irish inflation to surgeOpens in new window ]
In response, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said there was a “dilemma” - “we don’t have enough hotels in the city of Dublin but at the same time we don’t particularly want a huge number of new hotels to be built because the biggest challenge we’re facing at the moment…is the housing crisis”.
“Rather than more hotels and more Airbnbs, we actually want fewer new hotels being built and fewer Airbnbs and more construction going into housing, and Airbnbs and short term lets being moved into housing so we always have to bear in mind the mental impact that exists in the housing crisis as well,” he said.
Mr Varadkar said he had spoken to hoteliers and they had said coverage in the media had been “unfair”, that if you try to book a hotel more than one year ahead, you get the “rack rate”.
“It is not necessarily the rate they charge and they wanted that point to be made so I have made it,” he said. “I made the point very strongly to them that price gouging, taking advantage of people and hiking prices on very popular weekends is bad business.
“It is how your business gets a bad reputation, how your city or town gets a bad reputation and how your wider industry gets a bad reputation. It does not make good business sense in the long-term.”
