WITH THE hotel sector here on its knees, Frankie Whelehan is now looking to Germany for growth.

Whelehan, the man behind the Choice Hotels Ireland chain, has taken over a 120-bed property in Wiesbaden and a 110-bed hotel in Augsburg. A third in Munich will follow in January.

The hotels will operate under the Comfort Inn brand in the budget sector and are part of a three-year strategy to build a chain of 18 hotels in Germany.

As they are all existing operations, the capex and working capital needs are small.

Whelehan is also behind the Gibson Hotel, which opened this summer beside the O2 in the Point Village.

“We’re really pleased with the way the hotel has started, bearing in mind we were working from scratch in terms of location and identity,” he told me this week.

“We are finishing the year with a strong December, courtesy of the O2 and the National Conference Centre, but the most encouraging element is the business on the books for January and February, again driven by the conference centre.”

Whelehan said trade in general around the rest of Dublin city centre was making a “gradual comeback”. “We would be up about 5 per cent on last year,” he added.

West Dublin was still a “struggle” with room-rate battles a feature. Cork was “strong” and occupancy would be back to 2006 levels. “Rates are rising but there’s still some way to go.”

Limerick, meanwhile, was “arguably the toughest market in the country”, but it has stabilised, with Whelehan pencilling in 4-5 per cent growth for next year.

There was also positive news for Choice from Britain.

“We have a hotel in Croydon [in London] and it has performed very well in the past year. We have got a five-week booking for the majority of the 212 rooms for the Olympics in 2012, so we’ve just got to survive till then.”

Jolly good show.