Property developer Sean Dunne is one of very few owners of hotels in Dublin who appears to be succeeding in making a profit from his hotel business in the current climate of economic crisis and downward pressure on hotel rates. The Independent reports that turnover at Mr Dunne’s hotel group MJBCH has practically doubled from €6.6 million to €12.9 million, with previous losses being turned into a profit of €2.3 million.
Mr Dunne is associated with D4 Hotels which is proprietor of three hotels in the Ballsbridge area of Dublin namely, the Ballsbridge Towers, the Ballsbridge Inn and D4 Berkeley, which was previously known as the Berkeley Court Hotel. Mr Dunne is reported to have said that the company needs to pay careful attention to demand from customers and the pricing of rooms, but the the directors of the company expressed “pleasure” in presenting the improved results which covered the year ending in July 2009. The hotel group has become renowned for aggressively cutting the rates of their hotels in Dublin to the chagrin and annoyance of some other hoteliers in the Dublin market. The D4 Berkeley was, for example, recently offering rates of just €69 per room.
Accounts for MJBCH, which is located at Mr Dunne’s main Dublin office in Merrion Square, showed that the company employed some 111 staff, nine of which were in management positions. Annual staff costs were reported at €2.1m.
The performance of MJBCH stands in contrast to the fate of many other hotels in Ireland as recent figures show there were 82 hotels under the control of the National Assets Management Agency (Nama) and yet another 50 were in receivership.