SUMMERWATCH:The tradition of hiking up the price of accommodation in Galway during race week doesn't seem to deter the punters, writes Conor Pope
THE RIP-OFF CULTURE that exists in Galway during the races can only be described as "utterly disgusting and opportunistic and extremely short-sighted in these toughening times", writes Joe McElwee, a businessman from the city. In the middle of race week, McElwee rang a hotel in the city which he uses frequently for business purposes. The corporate rate is approximately €68 per night, he says, but the price he was quoted for a single room on the night in question was €299. He gave his name and the name of his company and pointed out that he had at least 15 of his clients stay in the hotel over the past year alone and asked if he could get a better rate, "but the answer was an emphatic no".
"I informed them that I would no longer do business with them, nor would I recommend this hotel to anyone ever again. This was nothing short of a total self-centred business rip-off, which does occur in Galway and we need to wake up to this," he fumes.
He accuses hoteliers in the city of being "greedy, selfish and lacking foresight and real business planning". He says they'll "whinge and whine about pay rises and lack of customers but do not have the ability to adjust to the current and ever-changing business requirements of today". The business was, he says, worth "a paltry €299 for the one-off, as against the potential of future business from the likes of myself or other clients. Word of mouth in the hospitality industry can make or break a business. They need to wake up to this or we, as the consumer, need to."
He concludes by pointing out, wryly, that he has just returned from a business trip to the US where he stayed in a five-star hotel for five nights and six days. "My bill? €505. Now that's value for money."
The practice of significantly upping the price of the grandest hotel rooms and the humblest of BBs in Galway during race week, the busiest tourist week of the year, is not new. Nor is it confined to a single hotel in the city. Ridiculous prices, however, don't seem to deter many people from visiting the city for the races, and trying to find a room at the end of July or the beginning of August at almost any price is next to impossible.
WE THOUGHT we had found the most expensive tea in Ireland when a reader got in touch last week after being asked to pay €1.70 for an extra tea bag in a Dunnes Stores cafe. Niamh from Co Kerry contacted us, going one better. Her grandmother recently paid a visit to Killarney with a group of about 20 other older people and stayed at the Gleneagle Hotel. "As I live nearby, it was a great chance for me to see my grandmother," she writes.
"She invited me to have dinner with her and three of her friends in the hotel." The dinner was, our reader writes, "unspectacular but okay. Afterwards, a waiter brought around a teapot and poured each person a small cup of tea. He was walking away with the pot when my gran asked him to refill the teapot and leave it at the table, which he did. When we finished, the ladies wanted to pay for the meal individually. The cashier charged the first lady €2.20 for the tea. He charged the second lady €2.20 for the tea and when he charged the third lady €2.20 for the tea, I asked him why he was charging them all for the pot of tea, only to be told that it was €2.20 a cup. Which meant that the pot of tea came to €11. Two tea bags and a pot of boiling water for €11.00. Is that not robbery?"
Incidentally, a supervisor came over when she heard our reader complaining. "She told us that she had been out that day and had been charged €2.50 for tea and that it was the going rate in Killarney. I asked her if she would be happy to pay €11 for a pot of tea and she had no answer for that."
Last week, we carried a piece on the cost of airport parking and omitted Cork Airport much to the chagrin of at least one reader. The cost of a day's parking in the airport's short-term car park is €16, while the daily rate in the long-term car park is €9.
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