First Irish hotel for Golden Tulip UK

Hotel operator Golden Tulip UK has added a first location in Ireland to its growing Tulip Inn chain.

The company has acquired a 25-year lease on a two-acre site at the entrance to the Airside Retail and Business Park near Dublin Airport.

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Artist's impression of the new hotel

A 155-bedroom hotel, the largest to date for Golden Tulip UK, will be built on the site by Galway developer Bernard Duffy's TBD Group Holdings. Golden Tulip UK will manage the £13.8m hotel once completed. The property will include a Bibo Bar & Bistro as well as a family-oriented restaurant. The hotel will create up to 70 new jobs and is due to open in summer 2005. It is being built using a modular system that will take just 34 weeks to complete. The company is in negotiations on several more sites across the UK. It says talks about locations in London, Belfast, Coventry, Cambridge, Epsom and Swindon are at an advanced stage. Golden Tulip UK wants 15 more hotels in the next three years. It has just opened a Tulip Inn at Newcastle Gateshead, while the Portsmouth property opens in November. The Tulip Inn Leeds Castleford opens in March 2005. Planning applications have been submitted for extensions to Tulip Inns in Manchester and Portsmouth. Golden Tulip UK is part of Golden Tulip Hotels Inns & Resorts, the fourth-largest hotel franchise operator in Europe. Buy this week's *Caterer* magazine for more industry news and analysis