Confirmation of the healthy demand for hotel assets comes with the release of the latest research in the sector which shows 45 hotels (excluding hotel investment sales) were sold in the first nine months of the year.

This represents a spend of €280 million, according to agent CBRE, and is up on the 33 hotel sales recorded for the whole of 2013. With the sale of several hotel properties and two hotel portfolios expected to close by year end, a busy fourth quarter of 2014 is in prospect.

Demand for hotels will undoubtedly be fuelled by the ending of the Capital Gains Tax waiver, due to be phased out in the budget. This waiver boosted transaction volumes.

According to CBRE, an array of private investors and hotel operators have been active in the market over the first nine months of 2014.

"This is a remarkable turnaround for the hotel sector when you consider that there are more hotel properties being traded in Ireland now than at the peak of the market in 2006," says Lisa Keogh, a surveyor at CBRE.