Dalata Hotel Group expects annual revenue to exceed €500m for the first time in company's history.
The Maldron and Clayton hotels operators said in a trading update that adjusted EBITDA for the 2022 financial year would exceed €182m.
That would be an improvement of €20m on the €162m adjusted EBITDA recorded in 2019, with like-for-like revenue per available room 21% ahead of pre-Covid levels for the September to November period.
Revenue per available room for the three-month span was up 18% on 2019 in Dublin, 30% in regional Ireland, and 19% in the UK. Overall, occupancy for the period was 79%.
The group expects to save some €2m from business energy supports in Ireland and the UK, adjusting its projected gas and electricity costs for the year down from €34m to €32m.
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Corporate bookings at Dalata have picked up since the summer, and the company noted continued strong leisure demand and a notable increase in North American visitors, driven by favourable exchange rates.
Dalata said supply in Ireland remains constrained due to use of rooms by the government to house refugees, and the group is unsure when the rooms will return to market circulation.
The group opened seven hotels between August 2021 and September 2022, and will this month rebrand the Hotel Nikko Düsseldorf as Clayton Hotel Düsseldorf.
Dalata has also announced pay raises of 4%, rising to 6.5% for those on below €13 per hour from January, and the group said it is cautiously optimistic in its 2023 outlook, citing good engagement with corporate customers and tour operators and positive pricing.
The company cited positive demand indicators in Ireland and the UK, including the resumption of more normalised conference business levels and the continuing return of international travellers, in particular from the US market.
The group said that it would continue to monitor the macro-economic backdrop and any potential for a slowdown, most notably in domestic leisure demand, but added that it had not seen any such indicators in trade levels to date.
“2022 has been a very successful year for Dalata where we demonstrated our ability to bounce back from the challenges of Covid-19," said Dermot Crowley, CEO of Dalata.
"I am very pleased with how we managed the recovery in trade of our existing hotels, opened six new hotels and added our first hotel in continental Europe. We are proud to have recently opened our 50th hotel with the completion of Clayton Hotel Glasgow City.
"We remain mindful of global inflationary cost pressures and the potential impact on consumer discretionary spending. We will continue to focus our efforts on protecting and growing the business sustainably as we have always done."
Proposed Dalata hotels in London, Brighton, Liverpool and Manchester are due to open in late 2023 and early 2024, and Maldron Hotel Croke Park, Dublin is scheduled for completion in H2 2025. Dalata now operates 50 hotels with nearly 11,000 rooms.
For the first six months of 2022, Dalata reported revenue of €220.2m and a profit after tax of €46.7m.
Photo: Dalata Hotel Group CEO Dermot Crowley (centre) pictured with management and staff of the Maldron Hotel Merrion Road, Dublin at the hotel's official opening on Thursday, 29 September.
