{"id":208202,"date":"2025-12-24T07:18:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T07:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/208202\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T07:18:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T07:18:20","slug":"mount-everest-conquerors-clare-hotel-business-scales-new-heights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/208202\/","title":{"rendered":"Mount Everest conqueror\u2019s Clare hotel business scales new heights"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mr Burke operates the Armada Hotel that overlooks Spanish Point beach in west Clare.<\/p>\n

New accounts for Armada Hotel Holdings Ltd show that pre-tax profits increased by 24pc to \u20ac2.16m.<\/p>\n

This followed revenues rising by 7pc from \u20ac13.23m to \u20ac14.19m last year.<\/p>\n

The hotel is one of the west of Ireland\u2019s most popular venues for weddings.<\/p>\n

Mr Burke said: \u201cI am delighted to say 2024 has been our strongest year to date.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Burke climbed to the top of Mount Everest in 2017 and is part of a business double act with his wife and former Fair City actor Aoibh\u00edn Garrihy.<\/p>\n

Ms Garrihy co-owns the Beo wellness brand, which last year opened a new cafe in Ennis, The Well.<\/p>\n

The cafe recently won two Clare Business Excellence awards, including Best New Business for 2025.<\/p>\n

On the 2025 performance for the Armada Hotel, Mr Burke said: \u201c2025 has been a good year for us as revenues continued to rise.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, I should caution that it also proved to be a very challenging year overall. Margins on food and beverage sales are squeezed, payroll costs are outpacing sales and price rises.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsumers are paying enough already, so margins are coming under real pressure, and the food and beverage part of the business is seeing the most impact. Turnover remains strong, but business now is about managing all costs that can be controlled and focussing on running an efficient business so we can improve and develop our product and service standards.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Armada Hotel overlooking Spanish Point in County Clare.<\/p>\n

\u201cRising costs in food and beverage is the biggest challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd while I believe we need to ensure our pay levels rise, there is a pressure point now with auto enrolment, sick pay, minimum wage, and it is the labour intense food and beverage side of the business that is seeing incredibly tight margins and overall cost pressures.\u201d<\/p>\n

The profit takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of \u20ac1m.<\/p>\n

\"Aoibh\u00edn<\/p>\n

Aoibh\u00edn Garrihy and John Burke on the cliffs at Spanish Point in Co Clare. Photo: Eamon Ward<\/p>\n

Today’s News in 90 Seconds – Tuesday, December 23<\/p>\n

The business recorded an operating profit of \u20ac2.37m and net interest payments of \u20ac211,173 reduced profits to a pre-tax profit of \u20ac2.16m.<\/p>\n

The business enjoyed a post-tax profit of \u20ac1.89m after incurring a corporation tax charge of \u20ac269,942. Numbers employed increased from 215 to 225 as staff costs increased from \u20ac4.94m to \u20ac5.4m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mr Burke operates the Armada Hotel that overlooks Spanish Point beach in west Clare. New accounts for Armada…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[108931,72,69545,61,60],"class_list":["post-208202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-aoibhin-garrihy","tag-business","tag-fair-city","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}