Over 1 in every 4 hotel beds outside Dublin is contracted to the government for humanitarian reasons - to accommodate the homeless and refugees.
The Irish Tourism Industry Confederation estimates these contracts mean 28% of all tourist beds in regional Ireland are currently not in the market.
There are growing concerns hotel rooms could become unaffordable in 2023, due to inflation and bed scarcity caused by these government contracts - especially as most of these contracts are for low- and mid-price hotels.
Speaking to RedFM News, the chairman of the Cork branch of the Irish Hotels Federation, Joe Kennedy says there would be better value for customers in 2023 if more hotel beds were available:
"Long term, as a refugee solution, hotels are not the solution. This year, we have helped out - very much so - and long-term government would need to come up with another solution, so hopefully government have time now to deal with the situation, but for long term for our industry, it is not the best to have that capacity to taken up. The three star, four star market. That's where the bed space is taken up. To give to customers more of a choice, that 20% capacity needs to be freed up in order to get better value".
