A total of 54 hotels with a combined value of almost €650 million were sold during the first nine months of 2015, according to new figures released by property consultants CBRE Ireland.
This compares with 64 sales last year, totalling over €422.5 million, and 33 transactions in 2013 with a combined value of €160 million.
Fifteen sales totalling €74.7 million were recorded in the third quarter of 2015, following a busy first-half in which in which 39 hotel properties - worth a combined €575 million - changed hands.
Among the big deals announced so far this year was JP McManus’s purchase of the five-star Adare Manor Hotel and Golf Resort in Co Limerick for €31.5 million and Dalata Hotel Group’s purchase of the four-star Clayton Hotel in Co Galway and the four-star Whites of Wexford for a combined value of more than €31 million.
The highest volume of hotel sales ever recorded in Ireland occurred in the first three months of 2015 when 25 hotels with a combined value of over half a billion euro changed hands.
At the nadir of Ireland’s recession in 2009 and 2010, there were only five hotels sold. However, the sector has bounced back in recent times creating an estimated 30,000 new jobs in the past three years thanks in part to the Government’s special 9 per cent VAT rate.
“There is now a scarcity of hotels to satisfy inherent volumes of demand from hoteliers and investors. The need to release more hotel assets for sale to cater for this demand is becoming increasingly apparent,” said Lisa Keogh from CBRE Hotels Ireland.
