A sun break could save you up to €1,000
Comparison of day-to-day costs shows it’s cheaper to go abroad
PRICE-CONSCIOUS holidaymakers could save as much as €1,000 by jetting off to a popular sunspot rather than ‘staycationing’ at home this summer, according to a sample survey by the Irish Mail on Sunday.
While hotels here came under fire for hiking up prices in recent weeks, a look at rates abroad shows similar trends in other countries.
But with lower average food and drink prices – and much cheaper car hire – some foreign holiday spots offer far better value for money than a holiday at home.
The MoS survey compared prices at Nerja, on the Costa del Sol in southern Spain, and Albufeira in Portugal’s Algarve – popular destinations in the two countries most popular with Irish tourists – to Killarney in Co. Kerry for a week in August. The study focused on four-star hotels in each place.
A search of 12 four-star hotels in Killarney on travel website Booking.com turned up an average
‘Hotels could not be struggling at that price’
price of €1,624 for two people for seven nights between August 6 and August 13. The priciest was the Cahernane House Hotel – a 19th-century country house on the edge of Killarney National Park – at €1,993.
Four-star hotel searches for the same dates in the chosen foreign locations didn’t come out much cheaper. In fact, the average price across 22 four-star hotels in or near Albufeira came to slightly more than in Killarney, at €1,630 for two people.
The 19 four-star hotels in or around Nerja had an average price of €1,369 – €255 less than in Killarney.
But applying the same search terms to the capital cities of the three countries showed a marked difference. While there are many fourstar options in Madrid and Lisbon for around €600€800, the vast majority of four-star hotels in Dublin cost between €1,400 and €1,700 for seven nights.
Dermott Jewell of the Consumers’ Association of Ireland questioned hotels’ pricing strategies here. He told the MoS: ‘There are good people out there who really are struggling, but there are others who are charging eye-watering amounts who could not be struggling at that price.’
The consumer champion questioned if inflation was the only reason for the high hotel prices and asked why the extra costs should be passed on to customers, who are dealing with the same crisis.
He also noted that hotels are benefiting from a reduced VAT rate. VAT has been at 9% since November 2020 and will remain at that level until next February.
‘This is a sector that, for a lengthy period of time now, has had the benefit of a reduction in VAT, which no other sector has. Nobody, whether they’re selfemployed, a business or just
your average consumer, has that level of reduction. They have to pay for their mortgage or rent and everything else.’
The MoS contacted several hotels and the Irish Hotels Federation for comment on pricing but there was no response.
Eating and drinking out will certainly set you back more at home. A three-course meal for two plus a bottle of wine will come to around €80 in Spain, and a little less in Portugal – around €70. This figure is closer to €120 for Ireland, where drinks are also considerably more expensive. A pint is around €6 here now, while in Spain and Portugal it is around €4.
Irish Travel Agents Association president Paul Hackett said day-today costs are a big incentive for Irish people to holiday abroad.
He said: ‘I was down in Sitges, just south of Barcelona, last weekend. One of the restaurants had a menu of the day for €13. Three courses, and that included a beer or a glass of wine. You wouldn’t get that in McDonald’s here.’
‘You wouldn’t get a €13 meal in McDonald’s here’
Mr Hackett added that more people than ever are booking at the last minute this summer, after two years of scuppered holiday plans and uncertainty about travel.
Car rental is another expense that can be much lower abroad. While
not every holidaymaker is interested in hiring a car, it is included here for comparison purposes.
The cheapest car available in Killarney will cost €1,155 for the week from Trip.com, according to comparison site Skyscanner.ie. Picking up a car at Dublin airport can be around €100 less than that.
But from Malaga airport, car hire costs a fraction of that, with a price of €287 from Holiday Autos. There is better value in Faro airport too – €434 for the week from Zest.
Car Rental Council of Ireland chief executive Paul Redmond said he could not comment directly on pricing, but he said rental companies had to sell off much of their fleet during the pandemic and were now reckoning with supply problems.
‘High demand and supply shortages have resulted in more expensive and fewer new cars available to the Irish market,’ he said. ‘I understand similar problems exist in other European tourism destinations.’
Although flight prices fluctuate wildly and tend to balloon closer to the date of travel, return flights from Dublin to Malaga in Spain from August 6 to August 13 were still available for just under €200 per person. Flights to Faro in Portugal were found for just under €230 for the same dates.
The final tally shows that Killarney works out considerably more expensive based on the parameters of our sample survey, at €3,619 for two people for the week. Nerja works out €1,000 cheaper at €2,616, while Albufeira comes in at €3,014.