Fáilte Ireland chairman Michael Cawley has urged Dublin City Council to change the regulations to allow for high rise hotels in the city centre.
The capital currently has a shortage of hotel rooms, with only 5,000 extra rooms planned for the next five years, which Cawley claims is still "5,000 short of what we need".
Speaking to the Irish Independent, Cawley described the current regulations - which only allow for a maximum of seven storeys in the majority of areas - as "farcical". He sees a change to these laws as a way of getting around the shortage problem.
"If you added three or four 15 or 20-storey blocks in the IFSC, it wouldn't be that significant," said Cawley. "Sites are expensive. If you look at top hotels abroad, they're 15 or 20 stories." He added Ballsbridge as another suitable location for high rise.
Dublin City Council, in its new development plan for the city, has conceded that taller buildings may be acceptable in some areas such as "major public transport hubs" and the IFSC.
In its draft, it said that it "recognises the merit of taller buildings, including landmark buildings, in a very limited number of locations at a scale appropriate for Dublin."
Cawley, speaking at Fáilte Ireland's tourism review in January, said Dublin needs a new flow of accommodation to satisfy the budget traveller as well as those staying in four- and five-star hotels.
