This article is from page 15 of the 2012-06-26 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 15 JPG
IN A WEEK when the retail and motor trade were severely hit in the county, there was good news for the hotels industry.
As many as 170 jobs were saved when the Clare Inn hotel was purchased for what is believed to be more than € 1.8 million by Dromoland Castle Hotel.
The value of the Clare purchase was further compounded by the interest in the 188-bedroom hotel from the time it went on sale.
Selling agents Savills Commercial said there was a lot of interest from home and abroad in the 8. 5 hectareor 21-acre site.
“An asking price of under the million mark would have drawn a lot of people to put an interest forward,” said a spokeswoman for the company.
In the end, Dromoland Castle Hotel paid just over twice the asking price of € 900,000.
The three-star hotel, which was owned by the Lynch Group, went into examinership in July 2009.
It first opened for trade in 1968, with 123 guest bedrooms. In the 1990s, it extended to 183 bedrooms and has an extensive range of facilities.
Now Dromoland Castle plans to develop its new sister hotel even further. Between € 250,000 and € 500,000 is expected to be spent on the refurbishment of the Clare Inn.
Each hotel will continue to trade separately and serve distinct markets, but the informal relationship between the neighbouring hotels, which has existed for years, will likely become more structured.
Dromoland Castle Hotel continues to be one of the most successful in the county, with latest accounts showing that it had accumulated profits of € 11 million at the end of 2010, with net assets totalling € 21.7 million.