Hotels selling out ahead of Ed Sheeran’s Galway gigs

Ed Sheeran’s two summer concerts in Pearse Stadium next May will give a fillip to the local tourism sector – two of the hotels closest to the venue were booked-up soon after tour dates were announced.

The Galway Bay Hotel and Salthill Hotel are no longer taking online reservations for May 12 and 13 next year, the dates when the ‘Galway Girl’ signer songwriter is scheduled to play at what are expected to be sell-out gigs at the county’s GAA stadium.

Tickets go on sale at 9am this Saturday, but already bed occupancy at many of the city’s other leading hotels is also close to capacity for those nights, with reports of big interest from abroad.

However, the increased demand has pushed-up prices, with a straw poll of leading hotels showing asking prices for rooms more than doubling compared with comparable weekend nights in May 2018.

One leading hotel is offering rooms from €275 for the Saturday of Sheeran’s gig – rates for the previous and following Saturday nights are quoted at €164.  The cheapest available rate at another city hotel is €370 for the Saturday – an increase of €161 compared with seven days previous. The cheapest room available at a popular four-star hotel is €284, more than double what people are expected to pay for the same room the week before or after the Saturday night gig.

The Irish Hotels Federation has defended prices but Fianna Fáil city councillor Ollie Crowe said the organisation should write to its members to advise them not to hike up rates “threefold” for popular events.

He said a shortage of hotel bed capacity in the city in general, is an ongoing problem, which could be helped through tax incentives to encourage new hotel developments.  However, the publican added that price gouging is unacceptable and is counterproductive and will deter tourists from visiting, or returning.
For the rest of this story, see this week’s Galway City Tribune. Buy a digital edition of this week’s paper here, or download the app for Android or iPhone.