
Originally Posted by
Hostel Witness
Erm, I'm *from* Ireland but I've no notion of starting one here.
(the whole point of me registering here was to find out about setting a place up someplace warm and where the running costs would be less crippling.)
Tourism is on the sliding slope here anyway. Now that most people have realised that we're among the most expensive countries in Europe and that our level of service isn't always the best. [/understatement]
Concurrently, the running costs of such an establishment - particularly in a large city [where there's bound to be competition] - are enormous, just to buy/rent/lease the property the costs are waaaaay to high, not to mention utilities, rates, insurance all all those other ways they've devised to screw you. Ireland is ridiculously expensive anyway, which is why I want to buy someplace foreign. Why should I drop a few hundred thou for a drizzly little bungalow in smucksville when I can set up an entire business in paradise!
I'd caution anyone who wants to invest in such a venture in Ireland to think twice. There was a time when tourism was one of our main industries. (actually one could say it was one of our only industries) Back then tourists, particularly Americans, would come in their droves. It was interesting, it was quaint and best of all it was cheap so the terrible weather and third world services weren't so much of an issue. But then, as our economy got better, we got greedier [another *massive* understatement], we kept the same 3rd world service, we still have the same horrendous climate - but now we want to charge you extortionate amounts of money for the priviledge. Our traditional tourist base - the US - who had once been a loud roar along the hills of Killarney, have dwindled away to a mere whisper, helped in no small part by a feeble dollar. American tourists of my youth were flamboyant big spenders, driving around in rented Benzes, reknowned for such crazy stunts as buying a round for the house and leaving gargantuan tips. Nowdays they're penny-pinchers who travel around in buses and instead of buying rounds for the house they ask for glasses of tap water. (seriously!)
As for European tourists, they're the same. Germans used to be another huge demographic here but they're just not coming back anymore, likewise the Dutch and French. Ireland used to be the place for young Britons to come over for weekend breaks and get loaded, but it's a sad day when the cost of a round of drinks is more than a plane ticket. The opening up of Eastern Europe has also dealt a major blow to our tourist industry; cheaper, better weather, better service.
I know the touirst industry well, I've been working in a related industry and my partner has been involved with the tourist industry here for almost five years. I'm in a tourist area myself and it's become a ghost town. I also know a lot of people who run B&Bs and other tourist-related industries, they're not getting the numbers. All the "holiday homes" that were built out here are either derilict or rented out to locals - and yet they keep building the bloody things - go fig! See that's the thing with Ireland - we keep building and building and building and building - the great Babylonian tower that is the Irish Economy, and nobody wants to admit what we all know to be true. You can't keep building forever, sometime, maybe tomorrow, maybe in five years, it's all going to come collapsing down on top of us.
At any rate, if there's anyone out there reading this who has their heart set on setting up a hostel in Ireland I would suggest someplace along the coast, the Ring of Kerry, West Clare - such as Doolin - or Galway, the Arann Islands, Achill Island in Mayo or Donegal - but you'll have competition to be sure, to be sure. Coastal Ireland is popular for all sorts of tourists, from the big tourbus people, to surfers. Get a lot of Aussie surfers around the cost of Clare actually. [always amused me that your average Aussie wouldn't swim @ home until mid summer (november), yet will gladly plunge into the icy depths of the Atlantic during mid-winter (also november)]
A much safer bet would be concentrating not on tourists, but on migrant workers from Poland, Latvia, Lithuania or Brazil, by offering cheap lodgings for them.
Wow, way to completely veer from one topic to another there huh?
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