This article is from page 24 of the 2005-10-25 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 24 JPG
TINY Bodyke in East Clare is taking its place on the map of some of the world’s top tourist resorts by extend- ing the golf course development in less than 10 years ago.
The €15 million East Clare Golf Holiday Village now taking shape beside the championship standard golf course at Bodyke has linked up with global giants in the holiday vacation sector by offering 10 year holiday ownership deals starting from €5,000 for week-long breaks that include free golf.
Part of the innovative approach adopted for the holiday ownership is to offer the guests the option of either using the property each year during the week purchased or to exchange it for another worldwide resort. Both Resorts Condominium International (RCI) and DialAnExchange, the world’s largest vacation operators in the world have approx 4,000 affiliat- ed resorts in over 100 countries. RCI also operates one of the exchange
call centres in Cork providing sup- port to European customers. Businessman Mr Scott who mar- kets the holiday ownership through his Horseshoe Holidays venture from Clare added, “the ten year deals start at € 5,000 for a week in the low sea-
son, which works out at €500 per week for week-long breaks over a decade”.
The 51 villas at the golf holiday vil- lage are being sold under a tax-break scheme and will be leased back to the operating holiday company with
a yearly rent return of €7,000 guar- anteed for the first six years. Costing under €300,000, the villas qualify for capital allowances of 95.8 per cent excluding fit out costs, accord- ing to General Manager of the villa complex, Ger Teefy.
Promotional programmes in over- seas and home markets for both the holiday ownership scheme and the in- vestor programme have already been launched and are being supported by Feilte Ireland, Tourism Ireland and Shannon Development.
Both Tony Scott and Ger Teefy are longtime members of the East Clare Golf Club which has sparked the big- gest ever tourism and leisure invest- ment in the area. Mr. Scott has now joined the launching investor group of Ennis businessman Tom O’Keeffe of O’Keeffe Electrical; architect Michael Lucey of Lucey & Associ- ates and project manager, Emelyn Heapes whose expertise in tourism and leisure has already established 6-unit holiday accommodation at Dangan Lodge, Tulla and Fisher- men’s Lodge in Scariff.