With as many as 1,200 new hotel rooms available in Dublin in 2018, and another 1,000 in 2019, is Dublin lurching from an undersupply of hotel beds into a supply bubble?
According to Savills around 2,200 new hotel beds are expected in the next 18 months, with another 1,200 in 2020. Combined this means an 18% expansion of the tight Dublin hospitality market of 19,000 rooms, the Irish Independent reports.
With occupancy levels hovering at or above 80% the expectation is that the city can cope with an expansion of bed space, but such rapid growth in supply is unprecedented since the 2008 economic crash.
The tourist authorities have no qualms about additional supply. In a response this week to a planning application for an eight-storey 71-bed extension to the Camden Court, Camden Street Lower, Fáilte Ireland said: "There is a major threat to [the Dublin tourist secotr's] future because of the acute shortage of hotel bedrooms in the city centre... The current demand far exceeds the supply and inevitably in a scenario as this, prices are inflated giving the message internationally that Dublin is not a competitive destination."
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