/sites/default/files/upload/spectrum_week_1_july_23.pdfIRISH HOTELS FEDERATION STATEMENT - WEB SUMMIT
Hoteliers Refute Claims Made by Organisers of the Web Summit
Thursday, 5th November 2015: The Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) wishes to refute a number of claims made by Web Summit organisers in relation to hotel accommodation for the event.
Despite comments made by the organisers, industry evidence shows that hotel room rates in Dublin are highly competitive for the event. The average room rate charged by hotels Dublin wide on the busiest night of this year’s Web Summit (Tuesday 3rd November) was approximately €155, at a time when occupancy levels reached 95%. This represents excellent value for a major international event of this scale in a European capital at a time when Dublin is almost fully booked.
Towards the start of 2015, the IHF initiated direct contact with senior members of the Web Summit team seeking to provide support for hotel bookings in advance of this year’s event. We met and corresponded with the organisers, proposing full access to a dedicated facility for block booking rooms across Dublin. The facility would have provided the organisers with access to advance booking rates for thousands of hotel rooms at very competitive prices.
The IHF regularly provides similar group booking solutions to organisers of large events and conferences in Dublin. However, the Web Summit, for its own commercial reasons, decided not to avail of this facility and dealt separately with hotels on an individual basis.
In total, individual Dublin City hotels provided over 3,000 bednights directly to the organisers at significantly reduced rates. The Web Summit in turn sold hotel bednights on directly to attendees. While additional bednights were offered to the Web Summit by hotels at similarly reduced rates in the weeks coming up to the event, these were not taken up by the organisers.
Operating in a highly competitive international market, Dublin punches above its weight as a vibrant and successful destination for conferences and events, scoring high on criteria such as value for money, accessibility, facilities and service – and a warm welcome. As such Dublin has played a significant part in the Web Summit’s success, with the industry as a whole getting fully behind it.
Dublin has a bright future as a destination for business events and has enormous potential to grow. Each year the city hosts hundreds of large-scale events supported by a first class infrastructure of modern venues, high-quality hotels and professional event organisers – pulling out all the stops to ensure visitors have a truly memorable experience. This is reflected time and time again in industry surveys showing over 90 percent of overseas delegates are very satisfied with their experience of Ireland as a destination for international conferences.
ENDS
FOR INFORMATION:
Eoin Quinn / Siobhan Molloy Tel: 01 6798600
Weber Shandwick PR Mobile: 087 233 2191 / 086 817 50 66