Ireland’s Dalata Hotel Group has underlined its ambitions for further expansion in Edinburgh, while highlighting the strong performance of its two properties in Glasgow.
Chief executive Dermot Crowley told The Herald in an interview yesterday: “We love Edinburgh. We would love more hotels in Edinburgh. We are always actively looking but it is a very hard one to get into.”
Dalata, which has 53 hotels, last year bought a building in St Andrew Square for its first property in Edinburgh.
READ MORE: Ian McConnell: Labour leader easiest target for Yousaf with U-turn
Mr Crowley, speaking after Dalata announced its revenues had risen by 18% to 607.7 million euros last year, said: “We are always looking at things in Edinburgh. Most of it doesn’t come to pass. That would be normal. We are looking at acquisitions all the time. The guys who work in acquisitions - they have to be resilient because a lot of what we look at doesn’t come to pass. When something like St Andrew Square comes up, we move quickly.”
Dalata acquired the development site at 28 St Andrew Square for £12.5 million from Aviva Life & Pensions UK Limited.
It expects to create between 60 and 80 jobs with the opening of its planned 153-bedroom Clayton Hotel at this site. Dalata unveiled its plans for this new hotel in early October last year.
Mr Crowley said yesterday that the hotel in St Andrew Square remained on track to open in early 2026, with the planning application for this having been submitted.
He added: “It is a really exciting project for us because of the location, the existing building, and the sustainability [element].”
Dalata opened the 303-bedroom Clayton Hotel Glasgow City in late 2022 in the A-listed former Custom House building on the River Clyde.
READ MORE: Ian McConnell: We must not ignore this worrying warning on UK
This followed the opening of the 300-bedroom Maldron Hotel Glasgow City, on Renfrew Street, in 2021.
Mr Crowley said yesterday: “We are very pleased, we are really happy, with all the hotels in the UK. That would absolutely include our two hotels in Glasgow.”
READ MORE: Scottish hotel group conquers 'exceptionally challenging' issue to prosper
He highlighted results announcements yesterday from Air France as well as IAG, which owns Aer Lingus, British Airways and Iberia.
Mr Crowley said: “They are all predicting strong travel through 2024. For cities like Edinburgh or Glasgow or any of those gateway cities, that is positive.”
He noted a continuing rise in costs, flagging the increase in the living wage and observing that energy is “much more expensive than pre-crisis”.
Mr Crowley said: “We are looking to expand. For the UK, we are really interested in expanding. We are looking selectively around Europe as well.”
Dalata announced yesterday that its adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation had risen by 22% last year to €223.1 million euros.
Mr Crowley said in the results statement: “I am delighted to announce that the group has delivered another excellent set of results, reflecting a year that has been highly successful in many ways.
"After exceeding revenue of 500 million euros in 2022, the group has grown revenues further to over 600 million euros in 2023. Our established hotels continue to drive revenue and convert strongly to the bottom line, underpinned by our decentralised model.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here