Ireland’s largest hotel group has reported no impact on trading due to ongoing uncertainty surrounding Brexit.
Dalata Hotel Group continues to monitor the situation but has seen trading in the first quarter of 2019 as being in line with expectations.
“We are confident in our outlook and we note the positive economic projections for Ireland and the increasingly strong tourist numbers,” the company said.
CEO Pat MacCann, revealing a 13% hike in 2018 pre-tax profits to €87.3 million, said: “Dalata continues to grow its presence and profitability across Ireland and the UK.
“We monitor and assess the potential challenges from the eventual Brexit outcome but we do not let it distract us from continuing to develop our people, serve our customers and deliver strong returns to our shareholders.
“Due to the quality and quantity of deals we are seeing, I am confident we will meet our target of announcing 1,200 new rooms in 2019.”
A company statement added: “We are very happy with trading at the hotels opened in the second half of last year. We fully expect them to contribute positively to earnings in 2019.
“We continue to seek opportunities to expand our portfolio in the UK and Ireland.
“We are very confident that we will meet our target of announcing 1,200 new rooms in 2019 through new build hotels, extensions of our existing hotels and opportunistic acquisitions which fit our strategic and operational criteria.
“We are delighted to have already announced in 2019 two new projects in Dublin which will deliver circa 270 rooms.”
Dalata saw its average room rate rise by 4% over 2017 to €112.71 with revenue per available room [revpar] up by 4.7% to €94.13 with occupancy of 83.7% across its expanding portfolio of 43 hotels which are either owned, leased or under management contracts
Total revenue rose by 11.8% to €393.7 million as the firm met a target of adding 1,200 rooms to its pipeline last year including leased hotels in Manchester, Bristol and Birmingham and owned hotels in London under the Clayton brand and Dublin under the Maldron brand.
More than 1,150 new rooms were opened last year, including Maldrons in Belfast, Dublin, Cork and Newcastle and a Clayton property in the Irish capital.
McCann added: “We completed the acquisition of the Clayton Hotel City of London at the start of January 2019. It opened on January 24 and I am particularly excited about the potential of this hotel.
“I am also delighted that we were able to secure such a valuable asset in London. I am hopeful it will lead to further opportunities for us in London.”
Dalata properties received around 134,000 customer reviews and achieved a proprietary customer satisfaction survey result of 84%.
“We continue to listen to our customers’ feedback and take action to address areas of weakness and build upon our areas of strength,” said McCann.