THE decision not to allow inter-county travel until one week before Christmas has been cited as one of the main reasons why many hotels in Donegal will remain temporarily closed for the remainder of this year.
More than half of Donegal’s sixty plus hotels have decided not to reopen in the coming days despite the lifting of Level 5 Covid-19 restrictions on Tuesday.
They include the Station House and Radisson Blu hotels in Letterkenny, the Abbey and Central hotels in Donegal Town and the Nesbittt Arms Hotel in Ardara.
Others like the Mount Errigal Hotel and Clanree Hotel, both in Letterkenny, remained open for accommodation for essential workers throughout the Level 5 restrictions.
Irish Hotels Federation Donegal branch chair, Paul Diver, said for many hotels bookings from within their own county would account for less than 10 per cent of their December business.
“Due to the lack of inter county travel or guests from Northern Ireland, the ongoing restrictions and relatively short lead in time, many feel it’s not financially viable to open” Mr Diver said.
The IFA Donegal branch chair dismissed suggestions that some hotels had problems recruiting staff while others were concerned that reopening would take them over 75 per cent of last year’s turnover resulting in waiver schemes having to be repaid.
“A lot of staff on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment will come off those for the Christmas period and go back on them in January so that’s not a huge issue.
“Similarly, I honestly don’t think that the rebate or waiver scheme is a big issue. You have to be up to seventy five per of last year’s income for that to come into effect. Both July and August were very good months but that was it – year on year we would all be well down.
“When we were weighing up the pros and cons of reopening it certainly didn’t come up in any of our conversations.” Mr Diver said.
“It costs an awful lot of money to reopen a hotel or restaurant if you’re starting from scratch. Every single thing has to be made up fresh. There’s huge costs involved.
“The fact that there’s no international travel, no inter country travel and there’s a very short window some hoteliers, unfortunately, felt it was not worthwhile to reopen. You have to respect their decision,” he said.
“We’re reopening on Friday. Traditionally, we (Sandhouse Hotel) close for two weeks over Christmas and while we’ll close for a period this year too it mightn’t be for two weeks. We won’t make money between now and the new year but we feel that it’s important to get the team back together again ahead of the new year – for everyone’s mental health as much as anything,” he said.
“We can’t worry about having to possibly go back into lockdown in the new year. There’s talk of vaccines and hotels have proven to be safe environments.
“Hoteliers across Donegal are looking forward to welcoming guests over the coming weeks. We’re open for business. There will be restrictions and we ask that people respect those restrictions. It’s not ideal but we’re not living in an ideal world any more. We’ve made changes and we have to adapt as we go forward into 2021,” Mr Diver said.
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