A TD has accused hotels in Dublin of “rampant price gouging” following the announcement of Taylor Swift’s Eras tour next year.
Independent TD Thomas Pringle told the Dáil that there is no hotel rooms available in Dublin for the 28th and 29th of June next year for less than €350.
Taylor announced last week that she would be bringing her tour to the Aviva Stadium on those two dates.
Pringle raised the issue to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar during Leader’s Questions saying that this will have a huge impact on young fans travelling with parents as well as those coming from counties outside of Dublin.
He said that it is a “disgraceful display of greed”.
“From looking at [accommodation booking website] booking.com this morning, there isn’t a single hotel room available in Dublin for under €350 for either of the nights of the Taylor Swift concerts,” he said.
He continued: “As if that isn’t expensive enough, we have in recent days seen rampant price gouging from Dublin hotels – some raising the price of a room from €359 to an incredible €999 for the night of the concert, and this was before the tickets have even been released.
“And it’s not just hotels that are guilty of price gouging – one landlord has a two-bedroom apartment they priced at €20,000 for the same weekend.”
Responding to this, Varadkar said that he has spoken to hoteliers about the issue and said that they “have their story to tell… that the coverage in the media has been unfair.”
“I’ve made the point very strongly back to them, and it is that price gouging and taking advantage of people and hiking prices on very popular weekends is bad business. It’s how your business gets a bad reputation, it’s how your city or town gets a bad reputation and it’s how your wider industry gets a bad reputation, and it doesn’t make good business sense in the long term,” he said.
He continued: “And we saw that happen before when Dublin in particular but Ireland in general got a reputation for being a very high-cost place to visit, and I hope they’ll take that point on board.”
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