Hotel & Catering Review - February 2016

FEBRUARY 2016

WHO IS SELLING YOUR ROOMS?

MANAGING THE OTA RELATIONSHIP

IRELAND’S

CALL

HOTELIERS LAUNCH PRE-ELECTION PLAN

Brand Builders The

FFÁILTE FÁ ILTE IRELAND SHARES ITS VISION FOR GROWTH

#TRENDING TRENDING KEELINGSGOLDMEDAL | TOURISM | INGREDIENTS OFC_H&C_Feb 2016_Cover.indd 1

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CALLING ALL SPONSORS NOW KEELINGS GOLD MEDAL AWARDS 2016 DETAILS CONFIRMED EVEN BIGGER AND BETTER THAN LAST YEAR! Our Mission: Keelings Farm Fresh as our Proud Headline Sponsor again this year, have got on board Earlier this Year so that we, can promote and work together with ALL Sponsors to make this, THE leading edge Hospitality & Catering Industry Awards event of the year!

What’s new this year?

Bigger venue Outside Dublin 5* Hotel Estate & Spa 600 capacity audience Working with Sponsors from now in the lead up to the Awards, on the day and night of the Awards and until the end of 2016 28th successive year key B2B annual event bringing Ireland’s crème-de-la-crème of the industry together.

This year, Reward and Thank Your Staff, Suppliers, Distributors, Valued Customers and bring them with you as a Sponsor or Finalist or Supporter to celebrate the night - we will have special accommodation packages available to EXCLUSIVELY offer you!

2 016 Venue: Lyrath Estate Hotel, Kilkenny When: Tuesday, 27th September 2016 Target Audience: Hotels, Restaurants, Guest Houses, Gastro Pubs, Luxury Spa’s & Resorts, In-House Caterers, Coffee Shops & Cafes, Country Houses & Guest Houses, Food Service companies, Catering Companies & Equipment, Facilities Management Companies, Wholesale Buyers, Industrial & Institutional Catering Operators, Supply & Distribution Companies.

Attendees: Proprietors, Managing Directors, General Managers, Food & Beverage, Sales & Marketing and Brand Managers, Buyers, Chefs, Accommodation Managers, Caterers, Distributors, Wholesalers and key decision makers Capacity of Venue: est.550-600 Format: Black Tie/Leading B2B Networking and Socialising event with Gala Dinner and Presentation Ceremony of our Awards What the Awards represent: Ireland’s truly independent Hospitality and Catering Awards for the industry promoting, rewarding and applauding Best In Class, Excellence and Innovation. Held in association with Hotel & Catering Review, they are the only awards that are both independently adjudicated and site inspected.

For further information: Contact: Hilary O’Shaughnessy, Sales, Marketing & Sponsorship Manager Email: hilary.oshaughnessy@ashvillemediagroup.com Mobile: +353 (0)86 3808 177

FEBRUARY 2016

WHO IS SELLING YOUR ROOMS?

MANAGING THE OTA RELATIONSHIP

Go to issuu.com/ ashvillemedia for the online edition

FEBRUARY 2016

IRELAND’S

CALL

HOTELIERS LAUNCH PRE-ELECTION PLAN

Brand Builders The

FÁILTE IRELAND SHARES ITS VISION FOR GROWTH

#TRENDING KEELINGSGOLDMEDAL | TOURISM | INGREDIENTS

Cover image by: Fáilte Ireland

CONTENTS IN THIS ISSUE

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Revenue Management Are You Optimising Your Online Presence?

20 24

COVER STORY

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Purchasing Niall O’Halloran on serious education and training deficits in Irish hospitality.

Waste Management Make Dramatic Savings With the ‘Zero Project’ initiative.

#InteriorTrends: Luxurious Dining With An Avant Garde Edge at McGettigans.

26 CAN IRISH TOURISM RISE TO THE CHALLENGE?

...the Irish tourism industry is very poor at cross selling...If you promote other businesses you will increase the dwell time of the visitor and increase the revenue that is coming into the country.”

Shaun Quinn, CEO, Fáilte Ireland

REGULARS

03

NEWS

08

ON THE

MOVE

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THE DOOR

LINE

28 WILD IRISH

Hailed as a ‘superfood’, seaweed has emerged as a major food trend in recent times and has found its place on the menus of progressive restaurants with a focus on local sourcing, yet its use in cooking is still far from mainstream. For those who have not yet explored it, there is a world of culinary discovery ahead.

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#INGREDIENT

SeaVeg W

ild Irish Sea Veg is run by the Talty family on the wild Atlantic coast of county Clare.

The family’s involvement in seaweed harvesting goes back about 100 years, but it was revived in 2009 when the Taltys recognised the renewed level of interest in seaweed products. They started out harvesting the well-known traditional seaweeds dillisk and carrageen, but gradually expanded their range to over 15 edible sea vegetable varieties and opened a purpose built processing facility in 2012.

All of the seaweed in the Wild Irish Sea Veg range is hand-picked in the traditional sustainable way on a small scale along the west Clare coast, naturally air-dried, and certified organic. Wild Irish Sea Veg sell their dried seaweeds both in large pieces or crumbled in a seasoning format. Their products are available direct and through a number of foodservice distributors.

CULINARY USES • Stocks & Seasonings: Kombu seaweed was the food that Japanese scientist Kikunae Ikeda used to first identify ‘umami’, later recognised as the fifth taste. Use dried seaweeds to create that deep ‘savoury deliciousness’ of umami by crumbling or grinding dried dillisk to a powder as a seasoning or use it or Kombu as a base for stocks and broths.

• Vegetables & Salads: Sea vegetables provide a huge range of shapes, textures and flavours that can be used fresh dried or reconstituted as an accompaniment or incorporated into salads – try wakame or sea spaghetti. Wild Irish Sea Veg do a ‘Sea Salad’ that combines dilisk, wakame, sugar kelp, nori and sea lettuce for contrasting colours, flavours and textures.

• Garnish & Texture: Deep fried seaweed makes a great crisp to add texture to a dish – as well as being a handy, nutritious snack. Sheets of nori, traditionally used in sushi, can be used for wrapping or placing underneath dish elements. Small colourful seaweed, like red dillisk, adds a subtle, natural garnish.

Tel: 087-0922555 Trade enquiries: Evan Talty info@wildirishseaveg.com www.wildirishseaveg.com

Business Matters Hoteliers’ Pre-Election Plan Calls for Decisive Government Action.

Food Heroes Calorie Counts on Menus are Achieveable.

#Ingredient: Progressive restaurants hail the seaweed superfood.

• Desserts & Thickening: Seaweed is undoubtedly a savoury flavour, yet one of the most traditional Irish seaweed uses is in carrageen moss pudding, a milk pudding dessert in which carrageen acts as thickener and setting agent. Agar-agar is a seawed derivative and vegetarian gelatine substitute that is used to make gels, jellies, and to thicken sauces and soups.

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KEY TO SUPPLY FEBRUARY 2016 | HOTEL

Wine

Jean Smullen on Portugal’s Strengths as a Wine Producing Country

36

A Quick Chat With

Kristan Burness

Head Chef at Angelina’s on the banks of the Grand Canal CATERING REVIEW

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Editorial & Production Manager: Mary Connaughton Editorial Assistant: Orla Connolly Art Director: Alan McArthur Stock Photography: Thinkstock.com Infographics: www.flaticon.com Production: Nicole Ennis Sales Director: Paul Clemenson Managing Director: Gerry Tynan Chairman: Diarmaid Lennon Published by:

Ashville Media, Old Stone Building, Blackhall Green, Dublin 7.

Tel: (01) 432 2200 ISSN: 0332-4400 All rights reserved. Every care has been taken to ensure that the information contained in this magazine is accurate. The publishers cannot, however, accept responsibility for errors or omissions.

Reproduction by any means in whole or in part without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. © Ashville Media Group 2016. All discounts, promotions and competitions contained in this magazine are run independently of Hotel & Catering Review.

The promoter/advertiser is responsible for honouring the prize.

Editor’s

VIEW F

áilte Ireland’s plans to attract increasing numbers of business travellers and conference events to regions outside Dublin is commendable (see Cover Story Page 10). The capacity to host conference events exists in many part of the country and it is important that overseas event organisers realise that Dublin isn’t the only city in Ireland capable of catering for the MICE sectors. But one significant trend that hoteliers should keep in mind is the appetite that many business travellers have for alternative forms of accommodation.

Prem Group CEO Jim Murphy says that the growing popularity of the serviced apartment/apart-hotel sector in Ireland and the UK shows that business travellers are increasingly opting for a more flexible alternative to traditional hotel accommodation. In fact, the serviced apartment/aparthotel sector is tipped to become the fastest growing segment of the UK hospitality market. It accounts for just over three per cent of the UK’s total hospitality accommodation supply but is expected to grow by an average of 8.4% annually to 2017.

Is the Irish hotelier geared to cope with the rising competition from other types of accommodation providers? One hotelier that is branching into the provision of apartment space is the Talbot Hotel Group in Wexford, which recently added 73 apartments to its hotel portfolio (see story Page 15).

Philip Gavin, Managing Director of the Talbot Hotel Collection, describes his apartment complex, which is adjacent to the hotel in Wexford town, as “a completely unique tourism proposition” and “a real game changer in terms of the accommodation offering in Wexford and even nationally in the Irish hotel sector.”

Given the apparent reluctance of banks to fund new hotel developments, maybe it is time for other hoteliers to look at the business opportunities presented by the serviced accommodation sector. It could also prove to be a short-term solution to the current supply crisis in the capital.

HOTEL

Email: maev.martin@ ashvillemediagroup.com Telephone: 01 432 2271

Maev Martin www.hotelandcateringreview.ie @HC_Review

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Editor: Maev Martin

CATERING REVIEW | FEBRUARY 2016

@

info@hotelandcateringreview.ie

www.facebook.com/hotelandcateringreview

To sign up to our online newsletter please go to www.hotelandcateringreview.ie

‘GREAT TASTING’ NEW

ADDITION TO IFEX 2016

NEWS LIMERICK STRAND LAUNCHES

1916-INSPIRED DISHES

Event organisers Fresh Montgomery have partnered with the Guild of Fine Food to introduce the Great Taste Market at IFEX 2016, which is taking place from March 8th to 10th at the Titanic Exhibition Centre in Belfast. Coming to Northern Ireland for the first time, the Great Taste Market will house many Great Taste award-winning products from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, including Burren Smokehouse, Cavanagh Free Range Eggs, Cashel Blue, Foods of Athenry, Goodness Grains, S. D. Bell’s and Yellow Door. In addition, the shortlist for the IFEX 2016 Product of The Show Award was announced recently. The finalists include Yummy Bakes, Paganini, Blazin Digital, Suki Tea, Tamnagh Foods, Glass 2 Sand, Dunnet Bay Distillery Ltd, Food Safe System, Butterfly Cup and SousVide Tools.

The Limerick Strand’s Executive Chef Tom Flavin is introducing ‘Everything but the Grunt’ dishes to his River Room Restaurant menu to celebrate the centenary of the 1916 Rising. The dishes, which will use Limerick bacon, include the whole hog pressed pork terrine with pickled onion, carrot, radish and grain mustard vinaigrette. In order to compile the 1916-inspired menu, Tom researched local food history and found that, as few ordinary Irish households had access to beef, which was was primarily a food for the upper classes, many kept a pig and it is said that they ate every part of it. During 1916 crubeens (pig trotters) and drisheen (a blood sausage) were all popular dishes and are still eaten in parts of the country. The killing of the pig was a ritual in which neighbours came together to complete the work, with everyone getting a parcel of meat to take home. Since there was no refrigeration, what was not eaten fresh was cured or salted so bacon became a very important part of the Irish diet. (l-r): Phillip Monks, Pallas Foods Marketing Manager, Kevin Cosgrave, Pallas Click & Collect Manager, and Patrick Clement, Pallas Foods Development Chef.

CLICK & COLLECT WITH PALLAS Pallas Food launched a new Click & Collect portal (www.pallascollect.ie) on January 26th. This is a new online order and collect facility that provides foodservice and retail customers in the greater Dublin region with an ordering portal where they can pick-up their products at a time that suits their business. Click & Collect customers can also pay online or hold their order to pay with cash on collection. Kevin Cosgrave, Pallas Click & Collect Manager, says that Click & Collect customers can select stock from over 3,000 products lines and that Pallas plans to increase this number to over 5,000 lines by the end of 2016.

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THE TOWER WINS ON THE DOUBLE AT ISAI AWARDS The Tower Hotel and Leisure Centre has received the Gold Award for Excellence in the Irish Accommodation Services Institute Awards 2016 for achieving exceptional standards across a broad range of accommodation services, including servicing of guest bedrooms, washrooms and public areas. They were also presented with the Supreme award, recognising The Tower Hotel as the Best Three Star Property in Ireland. The IASI is a national body which represents the professional interests of the accommodation sector. The Institute is active in promoting best practice standards of excellence and providing a forum for all accommodation managers to network and meet.

Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland; HE Paul Kavanagh, Irish Ambassador to China; and Andrew Marshall, Kildare Village, at the networking event.

ATTRACTING HIGH NET WORTH TRAVELLERS Twenty Irish tourism businesses came together at the Westbury Hotel in Dublin recently for a networking event organised by Tourism Ireland which explored Ireland’s potential to attract more high net worth travellers from across the globe and how to increase retail travel. A report published at the end of 2015 by International Luxury Travel Market (ILTM), in association with Euromonitor, predicts an increase in international luxury travel. And, according to the annual Readers’ Choice Awards survey by Condé Nast Traveler magazine, nine of the top 30 resorts in Europe are in Ireland, including places like Trump International Hotel & Golf Links, Ashford Castle, Powerscourt Hotel and Sheen Falls Lodge.

TOURISM IRELAND LAUNCHES

CONTINENTAL STRATEGY Tourism Ireland launched two new strategies for the Spanish and Italian markets on February 6th, which will see the island of Ireland welcome almost 3.8 million Spanish and Italian visitors between now and 2020.

That’s 825,000 visitors per year from both countries by 2020, representing growth of +25%. Key factors working in our favour to enable growth from Spain include the fact that Spain is now the fifth most important market for Irish tourism in terms of visitor numbers and the sixth most important in terms of revenue. Also, more than 20% of all Spanish visitors to Ireland visit in the off-season or Q4 – a real opportunity for Irish tourism operators to win business at a time when there is capacity in accommodation and other tourism facilities. And approximately 98% of Spanish visitors to Ireland are independent travellers, with around 95% booking part of their trip online. Key factors working in our favour to enable growth from Italy include the fact that over half of all Italian visitors to Ireland come specifically for holidays and Italian visitors are among our higher-spending and longer-staying visitors (they stay an average of 10 nights).

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Niamh Kinsella, Tourism Ireland’s Manager Italy and Barbara Wood, Tourism Ireland’s Manager Spain, at the launch of the organisation’s new strategies to boost tourism from Spain and Italy.

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FIRST MEETING FOR NEW TOURISM BOARD

Marie Curtin of Temple Dairy Healthy Milk Chocolate, Athlacca, at the launch of the food strategy for Limerick.

The first meeting of Tourism Ireland’s new board took place on February 4th in Dublin. The board members took the opportunity to discuss the upcoming 2016 season and Tourism Ireland’s extensive promotional programme to highlight the island of Ireland around the world. Tourism Ireland’s new board includes: Brian Ambrose OBE (Chairman), Belfast City Airport; Joan O’Shaughnessy, Aramark (Vice Chair); Ciara Burke; Howard Hastings OBE, Hastings Hotels; Stephen Kavanagh, Aer Lingus; David Lyle, LyleBailie International Ltd; David O’Brien, Ryanair; Michael O’Sullivan; Shaun Quinn, Fáilte Ireland; Derek Reaney, Ulster-Scots Agency; David Rodway; Trevor White, The Little Museum of Dublin.

FOOD STRATEGY TARGETS

NEW JOBS

A newly-launched blueprint seeking to strengthen Limerick’s efforts to achieve food destination status over the next three years was launched on February 8th by the Minister for Education and Skills Jan O’Sullivan. More than 100 food producers and suppliers gathered at the Strand Hotel to hear details of the ‘Limerick City & County Council Food Strategy for Limerick 2016-2018’, which is targeting six per cent additional growth for the local food tourism sector and 10% additional sales growth for producers. It is projected that up to 86 new jobs will be created by the end of 2018. The threeyear strategic plan identified new opportunities for growth in the sector, including a food brand for Limerick, a food tourism link to the Wild Atlantic Way, upskilling the sector, a strong marketing plan for Limerick, securing strong interest from many stakeholders in the establishment of a food strategy, and harnessing the expertise which was gained during Limerick City of Culture in 2014.

The strategy was researched and compiled by James Burke & Associates on behalf of the Local Enterprise Office Limerick and was co-funded by Limerick City and County Council, the Government and the European Union (EU).

Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland (front, right) with Tourism Ireland board members (from left) Michael O’Sullivan, Trevor White, Brian Ambrose (Chairman), Joan O’Shaughnessy (Vice Chair), David O’Brien, David Rodway and Stephen Kavanagh in Teelings Distillery, Dublin.

ONE MILLION AUSSIES SEE IRELAND ADS Tourism Ireland has teamed up with Etihad Airways for a new outdoor campaign in Australia. One million commuters are seeing eye-catching billboard ads for Ireland in key locations in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The campaign, which is highlighting Ireland’s Ancient East and the Wild Atlantic Way, aims to raise awareness of Ireland as a great holiday destination for 2016 and to drive sales of Etihad flights to Dublin via Abu Dhabi. The campaign, which is running for the month of February, also includes email marketing to 360,000 potential holidaymakers on the Etihad database.

Outdoor ads are highlighting Ireland’s Ancient East in Australia.

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SWEDES READ ABOUT BURREN SMOKEHOUSE

FOUR STAR HOTELS ARE MOST POPULAR WITH TOURISTS New research reveals that hotels ranked as the preferred form of accommodation for almost one in two (43%) tourists visiting Ireland, with four star hotels proving the most popular among tourists (46%) in 2015. These are among the key findings of Europcar Ireland’s 2015 Tourism Index which sheds light on current tourism trends in Ireland and provides specific insight into tourist attitudes towards Irish hotels within its Tourist Accommodation Sub-Index. B&B’s also proved popular with just under one third (32%) of tourists choosing to book a B&B during their stay. 10% chose self-catering accommodation and seven per cent opted to book holiday accommodation through Airbnb. According to Europcar’s Tourism Index, the majority (46%) of tourists chose to stay in four star hotels during their Irish visit, while 29% opted for a three star hotel and eight per cent chose a higher end five star hotel. A total of 75% rated Irish hotels as very good or excellent, 66% believed hotels were great value for money, 83% rated staff friendliness as excellent, and 57% revealed that they booked their hotel through a travel aggregator.The survey was conducted among 5,048 tourists during the 2015 summer period (May to October).

An article showcasing the Burren Smokehouse in Lisdoonvarna and its Swedish owner, Birgitta Curtin, appeared in a recent edition of Göteborgs-Posten newspaper in Sweden, profiling the award-winning smokehouse to more than 470,000 readers – or potential Swedish holidaymakers for Co Clare and the West of Ireland.

Tourism Ireland in the Nordic Region invited journalist Anna Rehnberg to visit Ireland last October to interview and profile three Swedes living in Ireland, including successful businessman Lars Pettersson, Sofie Skehan Larsson (married to chef Donal Skehan), and Birgitta Curtin. The most recent CSO figures show an increase of +33% in visitors to Ireland from the Nordic region for September to November.

KERRY HOTELS WIN BIG

IN CIE TOURS AWARDS

Hotels in Kerry featured strongly in the recent CIE Tours International Awards of Excellence, with The Dunloe Hotel in Killarney winning the Best Five Star Hotel award, The Brehon Hotel in Killarney named as the Best Four Star Hotel, and Benners Hotel in Dingle winning the Best Three Star Hotel accolade. The Best Dinner Feature award went to Killeen House Hotel in Killarney and the Best Lunch award was won by Davitt’s in Kenmare. The others winners were Dromoland Castle in Clare (Best Hotel Accommodation), Fitzpatrick’s Castle Hotel in Killiney (Best Hotel Dinner), Kee’s Hotel in Donegal (Best Hotel Service & Hospitality); The Brazen Head in Dublin (Best Event Dinner/Entertainment for ‘An Evening of Food, Folklore and Fairies’), Glen Keen Farm in Mayo (Best Tour Feature), Don & Barry’s Kinsale Historic Stroll (Best Walking Tour), Slieve League Cliffs in Donegal (Best Visit), and the Giant’s Causeway in Antrim (Best Heritage Award). Awards of Excellence, based on feedback from a survey of 28,000 customers, were presented to 98 hotels and visitor attractions. According to CIE Tours International Managing Director Brian Stack, the organisation’s wish list for 2016 includes the resumption of training and accreditation for tour guides and the development of ‘urgently required’ hotels for the main tourism hubs, in particular Dublin.

Pictured at the awards in Dublin Castle are (l-r): Mark Scott Lennon, Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel, Vivienne Jupp, Chairman, CIE Tours, Eithne Fitzpatrick, Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel, and Peter Malone, CIE Tours.

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Shay Livingstone of the Connacht Hotel and President of the Galway IHF branch with (l-r): Fergus O’Halloran, Noreen D’Arcy and David Keogh.

HOSPITALITY BALL RETURNS

TO THE ARDILAUN

The Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) Galway branch, in association with the Galway branches of the Restaurants Association of Ireland, the Vintners Federation of Ireland, and Skal International, hosted the Galway City and County Hospitality Ball 2016 on February 4th at the Ardilaun Hotel in Galway. Galway Bay FM’s Keith Finnegan was MC for the evening, with honorary guest John Concannon, who currently heads up the Ireland 2016 Easter Rising centenary programme of celebrations. “The hospitality sector in Galway, from hotels to restaurants, pubs, and travel and tourism businesses has experienced a very strong 2015 with key indicators showing a prosperous season ahead,” says President of the Galway IHF branch and MD at the Connacht Hotel, Shay Livingstone. “Advance bookings are showing further growth in the sector for 2016.”

The RAI Galway branch President is Fergus O’Halloran of the Twelve Hotel, David Keogh of Busker Brownes is President of the Galway branch of the Vintners Federation of Ireland, while Noreen D’Arcy is President of SKAL International Galway.

DOING THE BUSINESS IN BRUSSELS The island of Ireland was promoted as a top destination for business tourism in Brussels last month at an event called ‘Meeting Matters’. The networking event involved 40 representatives of various international associations based in Belgium meeting and doing business with eight different destinations, including the island of Ireland, and 19 convention bureaux, including Dublin Convention Bureau and Visit Belfast. The headquarters of more than 2,000 associations are in Brussels, making the city an important source of association conferences and business tourism for the island of Ireland. Business tourism is the most lucrative form of tourism, with visitors travelling here for business purposes spending about 2.5 times more than the average visitor.

Hotel & Catering Review is delighted to announce that Keelings Farm Fresh are our headline sponsor for the Gold Medal Awards, which will be held on Tuesday, September 27th in the magnificent Lyrath Estate Hotel & Spa in Kilkenny. This is the first time that the awards will be hosted outside Dublin and we are expecting an increased audience of 600 to attend.

Keelings Farm Fresh are working closely with Hotel & Catering Review to encourage all sponsors to get on board earlier this year to promote the awards as a key part of their year-long marketing strategy.

We would like our sponsors, finalists and supporters to see the Keelings Gold Medal Awards as an enjoyable way to reward staff, customers, and suppliers for their loyalty, dedication and hard work on a night when the industry celebrates excellence and innovation.

Also, we welcome Noel Recruitment Ireland on board again this year as our charity co-sponsor and as the sponsor of the Ireland’s Best 5 Star Hotel category.

Interested in sponsorship & advertising opportunities?

Contact: Hilary O’Shaughnessy Sales & Marketing Manager Sheila Geary, Visit Belfast; Danielle Neyts, Tourism Ireland; Azeta Seery, Dublin Convention Burea; and Jenny Finegan, Fáilte Ireland at the ‘Meeting Matters’ networking event.

FEBRUARY 2016 | HOTEL

Tel: +353 (0)1 432 2231 Mobile: +353 (0)86 3808 177 Email: hilary.oshaughnessy@ ashvillemediagroup.com

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Move

On the

JENNIFER WARD

JAMES KENNY

KEELIN FAGAN

NEW POSITION HEAD OF MARKETING

NEW POSITION COUNTRY MANAGER FOR CHINA

NEW POSITION HEAD OF DUBLIN

EMPLOYER IRISH HOTELS FEDERATION

Jennifer Ward has been appointed Head of Marketing with the Irish Hotels Federation (IHF). Jennifer will have responsibility for all marketing activities, supporting both the IHF’s online accommodation booking platform, Irelandhotels.com, and the Be Our Guest Guide.

Jennifer will also manage the IHF’s hotel marketing education programmes while providing ongoing advisory support for members. Prior to joining the IHF, Jennifer was e-Commerce Manager with jewellery distribution and retail company BJ Fitzpatrick. She has also worked as Digital Marketing Executive with Heaton’s Stores and Online Project Coordinator in the National Rehabilitation Hospital.

Jennifer holds a Diploma and a Post Graduate Diploma in Digital Marketing from the Digital Marketing Institute.

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New Appointments, Promotions and Recruitment

EMPLOYER TOURISM IRELAND

Tourism Ireland has announced the appointment of James Kenny as its Country Manager for China.

This is a new position to strengthen the organisation’s presence in the Chinese market.

James will be based in Shanghai. A native of Dublin, James Kenny has spent a number of years working and living in China and is fluent in Mandarin. He holds a master’s degree in Chinese language, culture and teaching chinese. He has extensive experience in Sino-Irish relations; is a member of, and former Assistant Director of, the UCD Confucius Institute for Ireland; and has most recently been involved in bringing Chinese students and tourists to the island of Ireland.

EMPLOYER FÁILTE IRELAND

Keelin Fagan has been appointed as Head of Dublin with Fáilte Ireland where she will be responsible for implementing the agency’s tourism development strategy for Dublin city and county and for leading the tourism authority’s drive to grow tourism in Dublin under the new ‘Dublin – A Breath of Fresh Air’ brand.

Keelin has worked with Conference Partners, a global professional conference organiser, for the last three years where she was Sales & Marketing Director with a particular focus on the UK market.

Prior to that, Keelin was Business Tourism Manager with Fáilte Ireland. She also has experience in sales and marketing roles in the pharmaceutical industry with Novartis and Merck Sharpe & Dohme. She holds a first class honours degree in Marketing & Business.

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COVER STORY

Will Growth Continue & Will it Be

SUSTAINABLE? This is the fundamental question that the industry has to address, according to Fรกilte Ireland CEO Shaun Quinn. He talks to Maev Martin about improving value for money, getting our tourism brands known around the globe, and addressing skills shortages.

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COVER STORY

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COVER STORY

“The

Fáilte Ireland CEO Shaun Quinn (left) with Chairman Michael Cawley.

Fáilte Ireland, the Restaurants Association of Ireland and the Irish Hotels Federation is setting up a new apprenticeship programme. The plan is to have it up and running in the third quarter of 2016.

Fáilte Ireland is training commis chefs on 14-week programmes. The successful participants will have the option to progress to a newly developed ‘Chef’s Apprenticeship Programme’ at a later stage.

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10% growth achieved last year is welcome but it isn’t guaranteed to be sustainable at those levels,” he says. “Recent growth has been fuelled by things that are out of our control. It wasn’t down to Fáilte Ireland’s marketing or to the Wild Atlantic Way branding because a lot of overseas markets don’t know about it yet. It was primarily down to the favourable exchange rates and improved air access – we can’t ignore those factors, nor can we bank on them! In addition, tourism tends to get an external shock every now and then so we can’t be complacent.

Growth needs to be fuelled by what the industry is doing rather than benefiting from circumstances beyond our control. Where Fáilte Ireland is keen to get to is sustainable year-on-year growth and we believe that is achieveable.”

KEY CHALLENGES • Value for Money Shaun points out that the improvement in value for money in 2015 was largely driven by markets where Ireland has a favourable exchange rate. In the eurozone markets, which Fáilte Ireland believes are most likely to generate sustainable growth for Irish tourism, continental visitors are not seeing our value for money increasing. “In fact, they see it as dipping for the first time in recent years,” he says. “The real test of value for money is how we are doing with the markets that have the same currency as ourselves. Value for money is dipping in Dublin for visitors from the eurozone, but much less so in the rest of the country, so that trend would be a challenge if it continues. If you compare Dublin hotel prices to hotel prices in competing European cities we are still holding our own but we need to be careful. It is about being vigilant because if we want sustainable growth we have to be competitive.”

• Seasonality Seasonality is another challenge. “There is a lot of capital tied up in tourism so if assets are only sweated for six to eight weeks of the year it has huge implications for those businesses and for employment,” he says. “We are keen to work with businesses to lengthen the season, particularly in parts of the south and east and along the west coast. In the domestic market Fáilte Ireland will be advertising to get Irish people to take more breaks during out of peak periods and we will do something similar for the overseas visitor market with Tourism Ireland and inbound

operators. In addition, maybe the grantaid that Fáilte Ireland gives to events and festivals could be skewed to incentivise people to run events off peak. A key part of our strategy with Dublin will be to focus on bringing more business in during the November to February period.”

• Business Constraints Fáilte Ireland is looking at its classification and approval system to see if it is creating any unnecessary constraints for tourism businesses. “We don’t want those systems to be unnecessarily bureaucratic or costly for operators, in the same way that we don’t want to see the introduction of measures that could place a burden on the domestic or overseas customer,” says Shaun. “While Fáilte Ireland is concerned about the current shortage of guestrooms in Dublin, the available data on the market suggests that the supply constraints in the capital will be resolved in the next three to five years. We will only see hotel expansions and no new builds in Dublin in 2016 and 2017 so that will create near-term pressure in the market.”

• Regionality However, it is a case of Dublin’s difficulty being the region’s opportunity and Fáilte Ireland is planning to capitalise on that during the year when it comes to both business and leisure tourism.

“Tour operators will have to redesign their itineraries to take in more locations outside the capital,” he says. “Also, not every conference is looking for capacity for in excess of 3,000 people so there is a lot of meeting and conference business that can be accommodated outside Dublin in locations including Shannon, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford.

We have exceeded all our targets for business tourism in Dublin so this year Fáilte Ireland will be specifically targeting conferences or events that we believe would work in locations outside the capital. Also, we want to attract more leisure visitors to the Ireland’s Ancient East region in the east and south of the country, and we want to see more leisure business going into the north and west of the country.”

• Skills Shortages Fáilte Ireland has been working with the Restaurants Association of Ireland and with the Irish Hotels Federation on a new apprenticeship programme. The plan is to have it up and running in the third quarter of 2016. “The new programme, which

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COVER STORY

#Tourism Brands

will be run by Solas, will involve more work-based training than the previous apprenticeship system so we will lend our weight to ensure that this gets over the line,” says Shaun. “I am concerned that, because it is new, the introduction of the apprenticeship system will be delayed and if that happens it could further tighten the labour market. The industry needs to be vigilant to ensure that this new programme happens and happens on time. As an interim measure, Fáilte Ireland is training commis chefs on 14-week programmes and nearly 200 commis chefs will graduate in April and go straight into jobs. But this is an interim, not a sustainable, solution to the current skills crisis that exists in the culinary side of our industry.”

BRAND BUILDING Shaun says the brands that Fáilte Ireland has developed are crucial to the achievement of that all important sustainable growth. “We have invested a lot of time and resources in developing the Wild Atlantic Way, Ireland’s Ancient East, and the Dublin - a Breath of Fresh Air brands,” he says “We have put a brand tracker in place for each of the them, which involves carrying out market research with the consumer every year. The Wild Atlantic Way concept is huge in the continental European and North American

markets and Dublin is particularly popular with the UK and with one or two other markets. With all of the capital projects that we grant aid under those brands we invest money on the basis that they will achieve a certain level of visitor growth. If they don’t, we work to help them to take corrective action. We also track the effectiveness – the recall of and impact of - our advertising in the domestic market. In the public sector you have to demonstrate that you are being productive with the money that you have been given in order to attract further government investment.”

Shaun acknowledges that the government has been pretty pro-tourism in recent years, from bankrolling The Gathering to putting the air tax at zero, and keeping the VAT rate at nine per cent. “If the VAT level is maintained it will be very positive for the trade but the trade has to show that it is worth the government’s while to maintain that rate,” he says. “However, I’d like to see the declines of the last six to seven years begin to be reversed in terms of government spending on tourism marketing organisations like ourselves and I’m confident that this will happen.”

CROSS SELLING IS CRUCIAL Has Shaun got any advice for hoteliers as they gear up for the annual Irish Hotels Federation

conference in Killarney? “Hoteliers need to be competitive and not opportunistic – within every business there is scope to improve your competitive positioning,” he says. “In addition, hoteliers don’t want to sleepwalk into a skills shortage and they will if this issue isn’t addressed. It is important for hoteliers to continue to embrace the Fáilte Ireland brands as they have done to date. Also, cross selling is crucial and hotels have a critical role to play in developing this approach. Over the past year we have noticed that the Irish tourism industry is very poor at cross selling, ie, the ability of a business to promote another tourism business in their area. If you promote other businesses you will increase the dwell time of the visitor and increase the revenue that is coming into the country. It is about increasing revenue rather than visitor numbers. With the Wild Atlantic Way, for example, we are looking to see how much time visitors spend and how we can work with the industry to keep them in the country, and in specifc locations, for longer periods of time. Fáilte Ireland is now working with clusters of businesses around the country to share research with them and is running training programmes to help them to better promote their areas. As a result, businesses are exchanging ideas and working together in a way that they wouldn’t have done before.”

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DOOR

KEY TO THE DOOR

KEY TO THE

Openings, Closures, Refurbs and Acquisitions

DALATA TO DEVELOP CITY CENTRE HOTEL Dalata Hotel Group has acquired DS Charlemont Ltd, which owns the former Charlemont Clinic site in Dublin 2, from developer U+I plc for 11.9m. On January 19th, Dublin City Council granted permission, subject to conditions, for a four star 181 bedroom hotel, as well as three residential apartments and basement car parking. The new Clayton Hotel is scheduled for completion in the first half of 2018. The investment in the project, including the 0.95 acre site purchase, will be in excess of 40m, creating circa 100 employees. Dalata also recently entered into an agreement to acquire the Clarion Hotel Sligo for 13.115m. They will invest up to 750,000 in a refurbishment programme and will rebrand the property as a Clayton Hotel, Sligo.

CLODAGH TO CREATE NEW DINING EXPERIENCE Celebrity chef Clodagh McKenna is moving her restaurant from Dublin’s Blackrock and is planning to launch a ‘new dining experience’ in the coming months. The Dublin-based chef, who opened Clodagh’s Kitchen in Blackrock in 2013, has removed her branding from the venue. The restaurant temporarily closed at the end of last year to undergo renovations and was reopened under a new name.

The Ballymaloe-trained chef also runs a Clodagh’s Kitchen restaurant in Arnotts in Dublin’s city centre and used to run the Homemade by Clodagh Food Court at the store before terminating her contract.

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Jim Murphy, Chief Executive Officer, Prem Group

PREM GROUP LAUNCHES PREMIER SUITES Prem Group is giving its serviced apartment collection a brand refresh with the launch of Premier Suites and Premier Suites Plus. It is also expanding its collection to Scotland for the first time with the opening of Premier Suites Plus Glasgow. Further developments are planned for the UK, as well as Amsterdam, Brussels, Copenhagen and Rotterdam, over the next 18 months.

Premier Suites has locations in Dublin, Brussels and seven cities across the UK. There are four Premier Suites Plus properties – at Bristol Cabot Circus and Glasgow, as well as two locations in Dublin. Prem Group are aiming to have 20 properties under the Premier Suites brand by the end of 2017.

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KEY TO THE DOOR

MORE MANAGEMENT CONTRACTS FOR DALATA

CONRAD ANNOUNCES 8M RENOVATION PLANS The five-star Conrad Dublin began an 8m refurbishment programme at the end of January which is scheduled for completion in spring 2016. The project includes a new design for all guest rooms and suites, including a full makeover of the Presidential Suite, lobby area and exterior facade, in addition to new dining concepts for the restaurant, ground floor lounge and bar. Details of Conrad Dublin’s new dining concepts will be announced over the coming weeks as Executive Chef Dmitry Stroykov finalises menus that will introduce a brasserie-style offering at Conrad Dublin this month. The new, ground-floor lounge and bar will open in March, alongside the unveiling of the lobby and refurbished guest rooms and suites.

Dalata Hotel Group plc announced on January 28th that it has conditionally agreed to acquire the leasehold interest of the Gibson Hotel Dublin, the Croydon Park Hotel in Croydon, the Clarion Hotel Cork, and the Clarion Hotel Limerick for an enterprise value of 40,000,000.

The leasehold interest comprises operating leases with an average term of 18 years outstanding.

As part of the transaction, the Group will also take over the management of the Clarion Liffey Valley Hotel, Dublin under a short term management contract. The hotels are currently operated as part of the Choice Hotel Group. The Group plans to invest 14m over the next two years in refurbishing the hotels in Cork, Limerick and Croydon.

The four leasehold properties will be rebranded to Clayton Hotels, increasing the Clayton portfolio to 18 hotels.

TALBOT COLLECTION TO

OPEN APARTHOTEL

Owner Cormac Pettitt and Group Managing Director Philip Gavin are pictured at the newlyacquired Talbot Hotel Collection Aparthotel in Wexford town.

The four-star Talbot Hotel Collection announced on January 12th that it had acquired a 73-unit apartment building called ‘Stonebridge’ on Paul’s Quay in Wexford town. The apartments are located less than 100 metres from the Talbot Hotel and feature a 314 space multi-storey car park offering private parking with direct access to the hotel-serviced apartments. Guests at the Talbot Hotel Collection Aparthotel will also have access to the pool and leisure centre and food and beverage services at the Talbot Hotel. Cormac Pettitt, owner of the Talbot Hotel Collection, says that they plan to invest a further 2.5m to complete these apartments and to welcome guests by the middle of this year.

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PROFILE

NATIONAL TOURISM AUTHORITY

ANSWERS IRELAND’S CALL

EUROPEAN ONLINE TOURISM MARKET

WORTH €126BN

Clare Tourism Trade Targeting Online Travel Agencies and Digital Sales worth 126bn

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op operators from the world of online travel came to Dublin this month to meet with key Irish tourism businesses at the Evolve Ireland workshop in Croke Park. Evolve Ireland is a new Fáilte Ireland event tailored to improve online marketing and give tourism businesses access to some of the biggest players in the online travel market such as Booking.com, Expedia and Lastminute. com. Evolve Ireland is the first in a series of events planned by the tourism authority during 2016. “The European online tourism market continues to grow year-on-year and is expected to be worth over 126bn this year,” says Paul Mockler, Head of Business Development with Fáilte Ireland.

“However, with research highlighting that Ireland lags behind other markets in terms of fully exploiting digital sales, Fáilte Ireland has developed a suite of workshops focusing on the online travel industry to ensure that Irish tourism businesses fully realise their potential via online travel platforms.”

Find more opportunities to sell your business to overseas buyers at www.promotionsireland.ie, or for more tips and tools on working with Online Travel Agents go to Fáilte Ireland’s YouTube Channel – www.youtube.com/failteirelandtv

AS THE NATION’S CONFERENCE AMBASSADORS ANSWER IRELAND’S CALL, FÁILTE IRELAND HAS BEEN BUSY HELPING THE INDUSTRY IMPROVE ITS ONLINE MARKETING STRATEGIES, RECOGNISING UNIQUE TOURISM INITIATIVES, AND ENSURING THAT THE MANY BEAUTY SPOTS IN IRELAND’S ANCIENT EAST ARE AVAILABLE ON GOOGLE STREET VIEW.

GOOGLE TREKKER LOAN FINISHES WITH IRELAND’S ANCIENT EAST

F

áilte Ireland’s loan of the Google once processed, will be published on Trekker, a mobile camera designed the well-known Google site. “Six out of to document footage in remote 10 visitors to Ireland last year cited the areas that cannot be internet as an influence when accessed by car, has just choosing the country as finished capturing the a destination,” says many inaccessible Paul Keeley, Director tourism beauty of Business spots in Ireland’s Development, Ancient East, Fáilte Ireland. ensuring that “Three quarters they will be of visitors available to view told us that on Google Street they use the View. The Trekker internet to plan is a wearable their itinerary backpack with a before arriving. camera system that The use of Google can be walked through Trekker is therefore pedestrian walkways or a welcome addition to trails on foot, automatically Fáilte Ireland’s significant gathering images as it engagement with digital and Fáilte Ireland and Google Partner to Put Offaly on the Map social media to promote goes. Fáilte Ireland has used the Google Trekker to Ireland. When finally captured capture sights including Clonmacnoise, and uploaded, we hope that millions Lismore Heritage Centre and Wicklow’s worldwide get to explore narrow streets Historic Gaol, as well as other significant of medieval towns, the grounds of stately destinations such as The Hill of Tara, The homes, and iconic attractions in Ireland’s Rock of Cashel, and Glendalough Visitor East and South through Google street Centre. The specialised camera has already view. We also hope that these images captured tourism experiences in Dublin inspire many viewers to subsequently and some of the breathtaking scenery of make the crucial decision to come over the Wild Atlantic Way and these images, here to see the real thing.”

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IRISH MARITIME FESTIVAL IS BEST

TOURISM INITIATIVE

Conference Ambassador of the Year, Brian Stapleton (centre) picks up his award from Fáilte Ireland CEO Shaun Quinn, Dara Ó Briain, Miriam Kennedy and Fáilte Ireland Chairman Michael Cawley.

AWARDS RECOGNITION FOR CONFERENCE AMBASSADORS

A

lmost 80 conference ambassadors were honoured last month at Fáilte Ireland’s inaugural Conference Ambassador Recognition Awards ceremony which was held in the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham. Hosted by comedian Dara Ó Briain, the event acknowledged that the ambassadors, nominated by the Irish conference and meetings industry, delivered a collective total of almost 73,000 international delegates to Dublin between 2011 and 2014, injecting over 101m into the economy. The Conference Ambassador of the Year Award was presented to Brian Stapleton, Managing Director of Periploi Aviation, for his role in delivering a total of seven International Air Transport Association (IATA) conferences to Dublin valued at 5.6m to the Irish economy. Brian also has another five future conferences in the pipeline with an estimated value of 5.4m. Dr. Pearse Lyons, Founder and President of Alltech, picked up the award for Outstanding Contribution to Business Tourism during the Gathering’ award after hosting eight international Alltech business events in Ireland during 2013 which brought 3,000 international delegates to Ireland. Also honoured for his ‘Outstanding Contribution to Business Tourism Industry’ was Matthew Ryan, Director of the Grand

Pictured were (l-r): John Davis, AeCom; Miriam Kennedy, Fáilte Ireland; Dara O’Briain, MC; Michael Bruen, on behalf of Ray Earle, Dublin City Council; Tara Beshof, on behalf of Michael Culligan, Halo Business Angels Network (HBAN), and Ken McManus, Irish Airline Pilots Association.

Hotel in Malahide and Marine Hotel in Sutton.

Matthew has chaired the Fáilte Ireland Business Tourism Working Group since its inception in 2007. “Last year Fáilte Ireland supported international conferences and events worth a total of 128m which brought 91,000 international delegates to our shores,” said Fáilte Ireland CEO Shaun Quinn, who was speaking at the event. “This year we will invest 5m in the sector with the aim of generating 140m worth of business and delivering 100,000 future delegates to our shores.”

Find out more about Fáilte Ireland’s Conference Ambassador Programme at www.meetinireland.com

Picking up their Best Tourism Initiative Award are Jenny de Saulles, Fáilte Ireland (far right) and (l-r) Cllr Oliver Tully with Miriam Roe and Mary T. Daly of Louth County Council.

T

he Irish Maritime Festival in Drogheda, Co Louth, was honoured with the Fáilte Ireland Best Tourism Initiative at the LAMA Community and Council Awards 2016, organised by Ashville Media Group, earlier this year. The LAMA Community & Council Awards 2016, presented by IPB Insurance and LAMA, recognise and celebrate community and councils working together. They provide a great opportunity to highlight and celebrate the work done within communities and to reward unsung heroes. The Irish Maritime Festival is Ireland’s largest annual maritime, food and family festival. Taking place each summer on the quayside at Drogheda Port, the festival attracted over 40,000 visitors in 2015.

“We were delighted to present this award to the Irish Maritime Festival in Drogheda which was a very worthy winner in a strong and competitive field,” says Jenny de Saulles, Head of Ireland’s Ancient East with Fáilte Ireland. “Our Ireland’s Ancient East initiative is very much rooted in Ireland’s history and stories - festivals, events and attractions are key to its success. The Maritime Festival is a perfect fit for the kind of asset we want for Ireland’s Ancient East, bringing local history and heritage alive through food, activities and an emphasis on Drogheda’s coastal heritage.”

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REVENUE MANAGEMENT

who is SELLING your rooms

Rapid technological change means that hotels must work harder than ever to achieve optimal results in distribution and revenue management. Maev Martin reports on a recent seminar, hosted

by Bookassist, on optimising your online presence and better managing your relationships with online travel agents (OTAs).

O

TAs are dominant in the online selling space but rate parity changes and the availability of price comparison widgets have enabled hotels to improve direct customer conversion and reduce dependence on third party OTAs. Metasearch is growing and represents another alternative for hotels to reach their customers directly. These were some of the key messages emanating from the seminar in the Intercontinental Hotel in Dublin, which was attended by over 120 Irish hotel professionals, evidence of their desire for guidance in navigating this complex area. Peter O’Connor, Professor of Information Systems at Essec Business School in France, Brendan May, VP Strategy for SnapShot, and Des O’Mahony, CEO and Co-Founder, Bookassist, took to the stage to advise Irish hotels of the growth in online opportunity while warning of the major threat of erosion of profit if they don’t take action to redress the balance between their direct-won business and OTA distribution.

“The good news is that rates in Dublin are competitive and online booking volume is growing worldwide,” said Des O’Mahony. “The bad news is that OTA penetration in Europe is quite excessive. In the US 42% of online bookings is direct but in Europe only 26% is direct so there is a big difference between the markets.

36% of bookings worldwide were online in 2015 and that percentage is expected to grow to 39% by 2017 so there is growth that can be tapped into, not massive, but solid growth.”

He said that common comments that emerged in BookAssist client surveys in different countries were ‘I can’t afford to compete’ and ‘tell me what I should be doing’. “The reality is that it is now a very competitive environment for an independent hotel,” he said. “Anyone selling rooms into your hotel under another brand is a direct competitor to your business. OTAs are doing a very good job and have changed the face of the travel industry over the past 15 years. And they are necessary to the success of your business, but you need to make sure that you are getting the most out of them.”

Des made the point that OTAs could teach hotels a lot about strategic spending.

“OTAs dominate search so hoteliers often ask themselves why they spend to advertise their own brands online,” he said. “Hotels often end up competing with themselves on search. You should advertise your brand name but be careful how your

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distribution partners are using your brand in search. It is now time for the hotelier to be more selective in where they distribute online to avoid people taking business away from them, online business that they can deliver themselves. Trivago meta search continues to grow and this needs to be watched. It is good exposure and we are seeing good returns for hoteliers but the rate strategy is crucial. Your rate strategy is now more visible across all distribution channels so the absence of a rate strategy is easily exposed in the online marketplace. Also, hotels need to realise that a lot of their contracts with OTAs are negotiable – it is difficult for individual hotels but for chains there is scope to negotiate more favourable deals. Hotels need to react, upskill, strategise and invest in order to prevent profit moving from the hotel to the OTAs.” MAXIMISE CONVERSION, CONTROL DISTRIBUTION Solutions that push sales on the official website of the hotel should be the strategic objective.

Des pointed out that people are increasingly promiscuous on the web so visibility across multiple touchpoints is critical. “Assessing ROI in any single channel is a mistake – assisted conversion must be factored in,” he said. “It is easy to fill a hotel by dropping the price and putting everything on booking.com but that leaves you with no profit so you need

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REVENUE MANAGEMENT “A typical hotel is spending 20 times too little on promoting its offering. If you are part of a chain it is probably 10 times too little.

How many hoteliers use Google Analytics? Probably a lot but how many have looked at it in the past 48 hours? Not many, so hoteliers are not using the data they are collecting to best advantage.”

(l-r): Martin Soler, CMO, SnapShot, Dr Peter O’Connor, Professor of Information Systems at Essec Business School, France, and Dr Des O’Mahony, CEO, Bookassist.

one bite whereas the OTA has multiple bites. It is all about seeing, understanding and using your data because if you are not doing that you can be sure that the OTAs are doing it.”

Dr Des O’Mahony, CEO Bookassist

#OTA

penetration

42%

of US online bookings are direct

26%

of European online bookings are direct

36% of bookings worldwide were online in 2015

Worldwide online bookings are expected to grow by

39% in 2017

to make direct business front and centre of your entire strategy and use OTAs for specific aspects and to fill gaps. You have to leverage OTAs appropriately rather than having them leverage you. Also, get visible – you have to maximise conversion and control distribution. This is a good direct strategy but it involves a lot of work on different fronts. Do you have the budget to do all that is necessary?

If you move just one booking a day from Expedia or booking.com it frees up money that you can invest in your business. A hotelier is looking at 20,000 over a year which they invest and use to build up more direct bookings that generates the profit they need to grow their business.”

He advised the small independent hotels to investigate ways of using their own data to reduce their dependence on OTAs. “Also, you need the best website available, not the best that you can afford, and you need to differentiate your business online and offline,” he said.

“Conversion is critical – you have

CONTENT DRIVES SEARCH Peter O’Connor gave the hoteliers some advice on how to compete more effectively. “Search positioning remains the critical issue,” he said. “28 is the number of pages that Google claims a typical hotel customer looks at before they make a booking. Less than one third of consumers start searching by using a name.

So what drives search? Content drives search, it causes conversion and earns engagement. If you have the right content on your page in the right format you will get searches. You must produce detailed, unique, organised and topical content.” He was critical of most hotel website content, and demonstrated how unfavourably the content on a typical hotel website compares to the content for a hotel on booking. com. “Financial controllers in hospitality need to change the way they look at their budget processes and consider spend on a cost per acquisition versus return basis as opposed to a pre-defined budgetary expense,” he said.

USING YOUR BIG DATA Brendan May, VP of Strategy for Snapshot, told delegates that the ‘always on’ guest probably has more data on their hotel than they do. “And they have read all the bad reviews that we were afraid to read,” he said. “Customers want to be treated like royalty, and in order to do that we need to interpret data more quickly and identify trends. The hotelier needs to ask ‘what data do I need to make better decisions? What is the information I need to make decisions 95% of the time?’ Why are we not using the data we have? It is hidden in databases, we have to pay to get it in and out, we have stupid passwords for PMS, Google Analytics and Facebook Analytics, and a lot of boring statistics. The hotelier needs to have access to and understand their data and take some of the advantage away from the OTAs who spend all of their time analysing all of the data that they own. In 2010 there were 10 billion computing units worldwide – one per person – and now everyone has more than one, so the Internet of Things is on the march. It is probable that every industry in the world knows more about their clients than we do. Hotels are the second oldest profession yet we aren’t using the data that we have.”

Des O’Mahony told delegates that 40% of Priceline.com’s revenue is coming from loyalty clubs. “The data they are using is already pulling revenue out of your hotel so hotels need to harvest the data generated for their own benefit,” he said. “The loss of customer data to OTAs diminishes your ability to get in front of the customer.”

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PURCHASING

Buying Niall O’Halloran, Purchasing Manager at the Rochestown Park Hotel in Cork, voices his concerns about the absence of education and training in purchasing and supply chain management and the impact that this is having on the hotelier’s bottom line.

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he Expert Group on Future Skills Needs (EGFSN) advises the Irish Government on the current and future skills needs of the economy and on other labour market issues that impact on Ireland’s enterprise and employment growth. In a commendable, very well written, thorough and truly informative report, published in November 2015, the EGFSN identified a number of problems that the hospitality sector is experiencing, problems that may continue, and even escalate, into the future. The report suggests that corrective and preventative steps are required to address these issues by using a multidisciplinary approach.

It sets out some very clever actions to be taken by a variety of stakeholders over varying lengths of time, all of which should be applauded and supported.

However, in my opinion the report fails to acknowledge and adequately address a particular skills shortage in our industry, one that can also be identified as a major deficit in the hospitality education sector. The absence of specific guidance and tuition in the area of purchasing and supply chain management has, I believe, contributed in a very significant way to the negative experience that the Irish hospitality sector endured during our recessionary years. Following conversations with a number of third level

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professionals, I have come to the conclusion that this shortcoming can be attributed to the fact that many hospitality courses fail to focus on these core skills.

To suggest that purchasing and supply chain management is a responsibility restricted to senior personnel is a wholly unsustainable proposition.

The materials and equipment required for any enterprise to operate efficiently and effectively derive from needs generated in all aspects of the business. As such, it is entirely appropriate to suggest that the appreciation for, and understanding of, the entire process of purchasing, falls within the role of every person in the organisation, irrespective of their length of service, their specific job title, or their seniority. Purchasing is much more than placing an order. It includes research, establishing specifications, supplier appraisal, planning lead times, the execution of vendor rating, and many more factors that do not fall within the remit of more traditional finance roles.

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PURCHASING Irrespective of which career any hospitality student elects to pursue after their graduation, every one of them will inevitably engage in some degree of purchasing and materials management. By simply requesting something to be purchased, an employee is engaging in the process. Despite this, a significant proportion of past and recent graduates are ill-equipped to face the commercial environment armed with the necessary skills to enable them to buy what is needed, as opposed to what is wanted, on terms that could be described as most suitable in their particular set of circumstances.

Consider the aforementioned perspective when you review what we have witnessed in Ireland over most of the last decade. In fact, I believe that the failure to appreciate the concept of ‘purchasing’ in its broadest sense is directly correlated to our past experiences.

Does it come as any surprise to you to learn that so many Irish hospitality enterprises, of their own volition, had to rely on the services of firms who specialise in purchasing, consultancy or cost reduction? Furthermore, is it any wonder that financial institutions, in an attempt to recover or satisfy their outstanding loans, availed of the judicial or corporate recovery processes and descended on our sector, assisted by firms who specialise in cost management?

At the risk of sounding hubristic, I would suggest that, apart from the very obvious prerequisites such as good value, customer care, experience and quality, the goals of the business can be reduced to three main pillars. One must procure services and materials as efficiently as possible, store and/or use them in an appropriate fashion, and sell them for a fair price. I would respectfully suggest that the first of these pillars is the one that warrants most of the hotelier’s attention in the times ahead.

Before hospitality professionals decide to embark on prolonged episodes of self-congratulation for what is being regarded as a noticeable turn in the economic tide, they should ask themselves a

Niall O’Halloran, Purchasing Manager, Rochestown Park Hotel, Cork

PURCHASING IS MUCH MORE THAN PLACING AN ORDER. IT INCLUDES RESEARCH, ESTABLISHING SPECIFICATIONS, SUPPLIER APPRAISAL, PLANNING LEAD TIMES, THE EXECUTION OF VENDOR RATING, AND MANY MORE FACTORS THAT DO NOT FALL WITHIN THE REMIT OF MORE TRADITIONAL FINANCE ROLES. few questions. Have they suitable requisition and purchasing policies in place? Have their employees that emerged from one of Ireland’s many hospitality training colleges brought with them a clear understanding of the principles of purchasing? And, most importantly, will their employees treat all purchasing funds as if they were their own?

Finally, all educational institutions should ask themselves, have they prepared their students adequately in this regard?

#About the Author Niall O’Halloran is a graduate of hospitality studies from CIT (1995) and the IIPMM (2005) and he also holds an Honours Law Degree from UCC (2013). A recent member of the judging panel for the National Procurement and Supply Chain Awards, Niall lectures on purchasing and commercial relationships for the IIPMM, has given guest lectures on ‘getting inside the mind of the buyer’, and volunteers his time to work with a number of business incubation and entrepreneurial support programmes.

Only time will tell.

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Commercial

PROFILE

FURTHER EXPANSION FOR IRELAND’S ONLY DEDICATED

Linen Rental Service AS KINGS LAUNDRY PREPARES FOR THE JUNE OPENING OF ITS NEW FACILITY IN CORK, MANAGING DIRECTOR ROB MCGOVERN TALKS ABOUT GETTING CLOSER TO THE CUSTOMER, INVESTING IN STATE-OF-THE-ART EQUIPMENT, AND THE COMPANY’S UNIQUE AND BESPOKE HOTEL LINEN SERVICE.

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his leading linen and laundry services supplier has invested 12m in a 40,000 square foot facility at Little Island in Cork. Initially, 40 new jobs will be created and Kings Laundry expects this to grow up to 200 over the following two years. Established in 1998, the Irish-owned and operated company already employs 310 people at its facility in Tallaght in Dublin.

BUILDING THE MUNSTER CLIENT BASE “The primary purpose of the new operation is to ensure that we continue to offer an unbeatable service to our customers in the Munster region,” says Rob. “We already have an extensive client base in Cork and the surrounding counties and we are looking to grow this even further. We operate a 50,000 square foot laundry

Sales Director Alan Murphy with Managing Director Rob McGovern at the site of Kings Laundry’s new premises in Cork.

facility in Tallaght from which we serve all of our existing customers. We transport over two hundred laundry trolleys to the Munster region each day - between Limerick, Cork and Kerry. We are happy to invest in the future growth of the company and to increase our cover in the Munster region because we believe it to be a solid growth area over the coming years, with tourism in Ireland on the up.

Cork Airport is adding new routes and it is targeting new business in a number of new cities. At the moment, around one in 10 visitors to Ireland come to Cork. We think that is likely to change as the airport adds new routes and as Kerry tourism continues to grow.

That is one of the reasons we chose Cork as the location for our new facility.”

Kings Laundry targets the bigger hotels. “And we look after them really well,” says Rob. Key customers in Killarney include The Europe Hotel, The Malton Hotel, and The Dunloe Hotel. In Cork, major customers include The Clarion Hotel Cork, The Clayton Hotel Silver Springs, Hayfield Manor, the Radisson Blu Hotel Cork, Cork

International Airport Hotel, The Metropole, The Ambassador, The Oriel, and the Montenotte Hotel. “We have the largest share of the Dublin hotel linen rental market at present and we would like to repeat this in the Munster area,” he says. “An average 100 bedroom hotel would give us 100,000 a year and some hotels are spending a lot more with Kings Laundry so we want all of our customers to know that we appreciate their business. And the best way to acknowledge that is to invest and be close to the customer.

Investing in new plant and machinery gives us contingency and helps to guarantee service and product to all our customers.”

The Dublin site currently processes around 1.2 million pieces of laundry per week. The Cork site will have the capacity to process 1.5 million pieces.

Overall, the company expects to exceed two million pieces weekly between the two sites before the end of 2016. When King’s Laundry Cork becomes fully active this summer, the site will also handle linen from Galway and other west coast locations. “We think that there will be growth in the number

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The Kings Laundry facility in Tallaght, Co Dublin.

of hotel stays in Cork and in neighbouring counties in Munster,” says Rob.

needs. “This system is working extremely well with our hotel customers,” says Rob.

DEDICATED & BESPOKE The dedicated linen service is one of Kings Laundry’s most successful innovations to date.

Dedicated Linen System – The Benefits • Excellent stock control • Superior quality • Guaranteed consistent supply • Financially beneficial ordering system • Flexibility in choosing product types i.e. you can choose your own linen styles.

How it Works?

Kings Laundry purchase a number of sets of each type of linen required for each hotel and they then identify each piece linen with a unique code. This enables Kings Laundry to have full identification and traceability of the linen throughout its laundry processes, as well as guaranteeing that the customer only receives their own superior quality linen and facilitating hassle free stocktaking. The linen can be serviced six times per week or three times per week, depending on the customers’

HOTEL

MODERN EQUIPMENT, REDUCED COSTS Kings Laundry’s current turnover is around 20m a year and it expects this to rise to 30m within three years. Since 2006, they have experienced consistent growth in their business, which they attribute to efficiencies within their service offering, efficiencies that have been driven by Rob McGovern in partnership with fellow

director, Alan Murphy, who heads up the sales operation at the company. “We reduced our costs during the recession,” says Rob “We took a very old system, modernised it, and put it into our plant in Dublin.

We set it up and dedicated it to specific hotels. We introduced our dedicated linen rental service in Tallaght in 2008 and growth in demand for our services has really taken off since then - and it has reduced the average price of laundry by 20% over the last seven years.

With the dedicated system, the customer is kept fully stocked.”

BRINGING VALUE TO THE HOSPITALITY SECTOR According to Rob, the average price per piece of linen in the

hotel sector in 2006 and 2007 was 44 cent and it is now as low as 34 cent. “So our competitors are suffering badly because our product selection, distribution systems and customer focus provides a level of service that other commercial laundries can’t match,” he says. “We are investing over 8m in machinery (the Cork facility will be even more automated than our Dublin operation) because we want to keep the price of linen at a reasonable price for our hotel sector clients.

The new Cork facility, which will be the most modern in Europe, will ensure that we can continue to keep our operating costs stable and offer a service that provides excellent value for money.”

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WASTE MANAGEMENT

T

ZERO PROJECT

he City Bin Co. recently announced details of its new Zero Project which aims to save Irish businesses up to 2m annually. By educating customers on the correct and appropriate methods of waste disposal, the Project aims to help businesses reduce their overall waste and make dramatic savings on their costs.

“Zero Project represents The City Bin Co’s ongoing commitment to bringing excellence in customer service, understanding and real value to our 4,000 business customers,” says John Farrell, Project Lead, The City Bin Co. “Suitable for all business types, from restaurants to multinationals, the Zero Project offers one-on-one expert guidance from The City Bin Co, who will analyse a business’ current waste separation process and offer advice and guidance on how to make improvements. If a company completes the project and implements the changes, The City Bin Co anticipates a reduction in their overall waste output which, in turn, could see a saving of up to 40% on a business’ annual waste bill. We believe that this innovative offering provides a really simple and tangible way for our business customers to make significant savings across businesses.”

The City Bin Co. needed a business who shared the same vision to pilot the project and that business was Rasam Restaurant in Glasthule. “Before we met Nisheeth and his team at Rasam, they operated a simple bin system where all waste went into one bin,” says John. “This left the waste unsegregated, and it left them paying way over the necessary amount on waste each month. During our engagement with them we specifically addressed the issues with the team on site.

We offered colour coded bins for recycling, glass and compost. The City Bin Co offered

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HOTEL

could save you €2m in

2016

Hotels and restaurants are reducing waste and making dramatic cost savings, thanks to their involvement in a new initiative organised by waste collection operator The City Bin Co.

John Farrell, Project Lead, The City Bin Co., with Nisheeth Tak, Owner, Rasam Restaurant.

in-house training to help demonstrate best practice. Over a period of months we moved the restaurant from handling over 700 kilos of general waste per week to zero. The use of this best practice was key in the reduction of their bill and the cost savings were in the region of 40%.”

Nisheeth Tak, Owner, Rasam Restaurant, says that when he met The City Bin Co he mentioned that he seemed to be paying more than he had been previously. “They undertook to look into my account and what John had to report was shocking,” says Nisheeth. “My staff had been casually dumping food waste into the general waste bin instead of the organic bin with scarcely a thought for the impact on my costs. Once The City Bin Co had explained this, we decided to take it further and we signed up to a waste audit which looked at our entire output. With some time, and some guidance from The City Bin Co, we are now at zero waste to landfill – a fact that is both satisfying to us from an eco point of view, but also for our bottom line.”

In addition to Rasam restaurant, boutique hotel the Cliff Townhouse in Dublin is another well-known hospitality business that is involved in the Zero Project and has found it hugely beneficial. ‘From the first moment I met John Farrell from The City Bin Company I was struck by his sincerity, professionalism and scope of knowledge, not just on waste management but on a broad range of topics and that was before we even became customers of his company,” says Adriaan Bartels, General Manager The Cliff Collection. “There was never any doubt in my mind that we were dealing with the best person in this business and as a result of our strengthening relationship we have seen both companies benefit greatly from his expertise and personal touch on our business.’

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INTERIOR TRENDS

Style Tip

BEAUVILLE SUSPENSION

When you stay with natural materials you are able to combine a lot of disparate elements. Copper, concrete lights and metallic finishes work well together and give a very real feel to the place.

www.nirvanalighting.com

Interior DESIRE

McGettigan’s Cookhouse & Bar

When Ciara McGettigan began designing the first stand-alone McGettigan’s Cookhouse & Bar she wanted to offer guests a luxurious dining experience with a crisp avant-garde edge.

Ciara McGettigan BAMBOO RATTAN BASKETS

www.kitchencraft.co.uk AERONAUT WALL CLOCK

www.artisanti.com

COPPER WIRE BASKET

design3000.de

Ciara McGettigan wanted to create “a contemporary, sophisticated and relaxed dining experience” that encapsulated the urban chic that is associated with a New York style loft. A large pewter island bar breaks into the expansive space, standing prominently beneath an extensive metal wine rack and reclaimed wooden joists that decorate the ceiling. “An area of intimate wooden tables encircled by exposed reclaimed brick and herringbone floors transforms into an extended space that holds long concrete and zinc topped sharing tables, as well as beautiful leather banquette booths,” says Ciara. “This is all set against a background of cream tile and open black piping. The bespoke lighting design seeks to draw in as much natural daylight as possible and one of the walls is floor to ceiling glass so it’s airy and bright in the daytime. For the evening, we have gone for a very high spec lighting design that creates a warm and inviting atmosphere.”

TOTEM ENCHANTED DEER LEAF

www.studioroof.com

BETTY SUSPENSION LIGHTSHADE

MIDI WINE GLASS

www.lsa-international.com

www.nirvanalighting.com

CREAM WALL PAINT

www.mylands.co.uk

TARRAGON TILE

www.winchestertiles.com

ELLA BRENTWOOD CHAIR

www.warnercontractfurniture.co.uk

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BUSINESS MATTERS

Hoteliers Make Pre-Election Call for

DECISIVE GOVERMENT

ACTION

The Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) is targeting the creation of 40,000 new tourism jobs during the life of the next Government.

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BUSINESS MATTERS

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he IHF published its four-point tourism policy plan for the general election - Strategy for Job Creation and Economic Growth - on February 11th and has called on the main political parties to commit to decisive action in support of continued recovery in Irish tourism. “Now is not the time for us to take our eye off the ball, particularly given the uncertain economic outlook for the global economy,” says IHF President Stephen McNally. “We must safeguard the gains we have achieved so far and ensure sustained growth over the medium to longterm.”

A MANIFESTO FOR GROWING TOURISM & JOBS The IHF’s policy document reiterates many of the points raised in the Irish Tourist Industry Confederation’s Tourism Opportunity – a Manifesto for Growing Tourism and Jobs which was published in January. The findings from ITIC’s 2015 Industry Leaders Survey show that the constraints on growing business are primarily on the supply side. When asked about risks to sustainable tourism growth, 66% of those industry leaders surveyed cited rising costs, 61% mentioned underinvestment in tourism plant, 54% highlighted underinvestment in infrastructure, 49% cited the regulatory environment, and 41% said that competition within the sector was a barrier to growth.

The ITIC says that three cost factors are of particular concern to the tourism industry – labour costs, local authority commercial rates and VAT. The Manifesto says that Ireland’s minimum wage is the fourth highest out of 21 countries, at 9.15 per hour.

Unlike many other countries, there is no cap on employer social security cost or a reduced rate above a certain income threshold in Ireland. ITIC claims, therefore, that the flat rate charge on the full salary effectively erodes Ireland’s competitive position as salaries increase. Also, ITIC points out that commercial rates grew as a proportion of revenue from 24% in 2002 to 36% in 2014. The bill to tourism enterprises, particularly to

#IHF:

Four-Point Plan

1.

GREATER COST COMPETITIVENESS The high cost of doing business in Ireland remains one of the most pressing issues faced by tourism businesses. According to the IHF, since 2008 the hotel sector has brought down costs by 24%, while the levels of Governmentdetermined costs have remained the same. The IHF wants the 9% tourism VAT rate to be retained, as well as improved labour cost competitiveness through the reform of income taxes and the adjustment of the social insurance structure for lower paid workers, the implementation of the full revaluations of local authority rates for hotels, as provided for under the Valuation Amendment Act 2015, and a minimisation of Governmentcontrolled energy and water costs within the commercial sector.

2.

RESTORATION OF TOURISM MARKETING FUNDING Every euro spent in destination marketing by the State results in a 34 visitor spend in the country. Since the downturn, however, the funding allocation for tourism marketing and product development has been cut back substantially and tourism bodies are now operating under very constrained budgets.The IHF is calling for a restoration of funding to 2008 levels to support both Fáilte Ireland and Tourism Ireland in delivering Ireland’s tourism product messages into target markets such as North America, Britain and Continental Europe.

3.

ADDITIONAL INVESTMENT IN TOURISM PRODUCT The IHF document claims that tourism growth is also being jeopardised by a lack of adequate investment in tourism product and infrastructure. Like ITIC, the federation is calling for a new five-year product development plan, including the provision of a capital budget of 300m for tourism specific projects over the period. Averaging 60m per annum, this is equivalent to one per cent of annual export receipts from tourism in the years 2016 to 2020.

4.

INVESTMENT IN SKILLS AND TRAINING The IHF says that hospitality training needs additional resources to support the anticipated increase in employment in the sector. It wants to see a reform of training policy within the industry, resulting in a focus on continuous education, up skilling and equipping people for career progression and development.

hotels, has become a hefty burden.

ITIC says that the current 9% VAT rate for tourism services has restored our competitiveness among European tourist destinations but that any increase would place Ireland at a serious competitive disadvantage.

The Confederation believes that a minimum of 60m per annum needs to be invested in tourism capital and infrastructure over the next five years. The OPW, which manages and maintains approximately 70 national monuments and historic sites for visitors, has suffered cutbacks to its capital programmes over the past 10 years. The annual capital investment programme dropped from 17m in the mid 2000s to just 350,000 in 2014 and 2015. ITIC says that this has serious implications for the sustainability of tourism demand throughout the country. ITIC is also calling for investment in enabling infrastructure – priorities include runway capacity at Dublin Airport, a modern inter-modal public transport network, and the availability of high-speed broadband throughout the country.

Like the IHF, and, indeed, Fáilte Ireland (see Cover Story Page 10), ITIC is concerned about the severe cuts to Ireland’s destination marketing budget. This year an estimated 36m will be spent by Tourism Ireland on marketing the island of Ireland overseas, compared to 62m in 2008.

As a result, spontaneous recall of advertising for Ireland has fallen in each of our top source markets over the past four years. Ireland has now dropped to seventh most recalled holiday destination in Britain, eighth in the US and ninth in Germany. In addition, the latest tracking research indicates that while the proportion of people interested in visiting Ireland has held steady in Britain, France and Germany, the choice of Ireland has been pushed further down the list of destinations being considered. ITIC says that if this pattern continues it will ultimately lead to a continued slide in awareness of Ireland as a destination among potential travellers. It warns that there will be an inevitable drop in visitor numbers, which will be costly and difficult to reverse.

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FOOD HEROES

Food expert Mary Daly re-launched her consultancy service as The Food Safety Company at the recent Hospitality Expo. She talks to Maev Martin about the big trends for 2016 and why calorie counts on menus is achieveable.

HEALTHY MENU OPTIONS

BOOST THE BOTTOM LINE

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ver since it was announced, there has been widespread resistance in the industry to the idea of making calorie counts on menus compulsory but Mary believes that, with good planning, it can be done in a way that doesn’t break the bank. “Before a restaurant does anything they have to adhere to standard recipes and that will make it easier to include the calorie count,” she says. “Whether it is chicken curry or bolognese, you need to know that there is a specific number of calories in the portions you serve. Also, you need to start small, maybe look at your top 10 best sellers, and then devise a healthy option menu which could be on the front or back page of your menu. ‘Healthy Sections’ are on a lot of restaurant menus already and the option of a healthier alternative has proven particularly popular on Italian restaurant menus.”

The food safety expert is predicting that 2016 will see customers demand healthier foods than ever before, with a continued demand for gluten, sugar and lactose free foods.

“They want to know what is in their food and they are making their decisions on where to dine on the basis of whether the establishment has healthy and ‘free from’ options, so a restaurant needs to provide these options as a minimum as this trend is a key driving force in the hospitality industry,” she says. “There are three reasons for this – people are anxious about their health, they want to manage their weight, and they want to have more energy. 20% of our nation are opting to go gluten free because they believe it increases their energy – they don’t feel as sated, full or lethargic when they go for that option. So all of this awareness, be it in terms of allergen labelling, nutrition or calories, is here to stay. Gluten free brands have grown from 30% to 50% in the last year in the UK, and it is probably similar in Ireland. The other interesting point is that a lot of people look at websites before they decide where to dine, particularly those with allergies and intolerances (20% of the public that are dining out claim they are suffering from food intolerances), so putting that healthy menu on your website could drive customers to your business. In addition, The Food Safety Company offers a cost effective nutritionallabel review service for food producers and can assist restaurants with calorie posting.”

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#Food Facts for 2016 The number of people with allergies has increased by

30%

Lactose

free does not mean dairy free.

over the past 20 years

Coeliac disease affects five per cent of the population.

72%

follow gluten-free diets. There is a

of the public are aware of allergen labelling

70% of the world’s population &

15%

20%

year-on-year growth in gluten free food products.

The free from market is experiencing

16% 34%

in the UK have a reduced tolerance to lactose

year-on-year growth.

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FOOD HEROES

#About Mary Mary Daly served as an Army Officer for 21 years and pioneered HACCP implementation for the Defence Forces at home and overseas. In November 2012, she was appointed as the Education & Training Co-ordinator for the Food Safety Professionals Association. She established her Midleton, Co Cork-based food safety consultancy in 2000. “Our clients range from primary producers to Michelin star restaurants and absolutely every type of food business in between,” says Mary. “We pride ourselves on being at the cutting edge of modern food developments - be it user-friendly HACCP plans, healthy menu options, getting food products on the shop shelf or ready for export, giving sound legal advice to clients on matters of compliance like labeling, and delivering a range of certified training programmes.”

Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Simon Coveney, with Mary Daly at the launch of The Food Safety Company, formerly Mary Daly and Associates, at the English Market in Cork city.

Research shows that 52% of the UK public are influenced by healthy options.

In fact, leading brands in the UK now offer separate gluten free dishes. T.G.I. Fridays has introduced a colour-coded healthy menu. Starbucks and Costa have teamed up with Chopped and Pod respectively to offer a healthy choice to their customers, and Prêt a Manger now boast that 52% of sales are vegetarian foods. And Mary believes that the hotel and restaurant sector will have to follow suit. “The naturally fast food brand, Leon, include a ‘DF’ code to highlight the dairy free options,” she says. “Pret a Manger is the UK’s healthiest fast casual restaurant. It is interesting that their fastest selling hot wrap is their falafel and halloumi wrap and their best selling item is a vegetarian SuperBowl of beetroot, butternut squash and feta. That tells us a lot about where the market is going.

Nearly two thirds of us are either obese or overweight and the World Health

Organisation estimates that Ireland will be the most obese country in the world by 2030 if we don’t change our eating habits. Thankfully customers are becoming aware and requesting healthier foods, so restaurants and food manufacturers may have to innovate their menu offerings. Food producers also have a responsibility to educate their customers, and although it may be time consuming for some restaurants it is vital to the health of the Irish people.”

Mary says that the restaurateur must remember that their dining out public is between the ages of 25 and 34.

“They are the big money spenders, and the healthy option is the deciding factor for them,” she says. “They want great taste, guilt-free treats, and small portions. Simple, raw and pure are the buzz words now when it comes to food and this is not a fad. Smart operators are responding so the caterer needs to make it a core part of their marketing message.”

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Organics‌

Naturally Good For Business

WILD IRISH SEA VEG

IRISH

Tel: 087-0922555

Seaweed

Trade enquiries: Evan Talty info@wildirishseaveg.com www.wildirishseaveg.com

DUNANY FLOUR Tel: 086 3397551

Trade enquires: Andrew Workman leoniew@eircom.net

SECOND NATURE Tel: 087-9265423

Trade enquiries: Kitty Colchester info@secondnatureoils.com www.secondnatureoils.com

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WILD IRISH

#INGREDIENT

SeaVeg W Hailed as a ‘superfood’, seaweed has emerged as a major food trend in recent times and has found its place on the menus of progressive restaurants with a focus on local sourcing, yet its use in cooking is still far from mainstream. For those who have not yet explored it, there is a world of culinary discovery ahead.

ild Irish Sea Veg is run by the Talty family on the wild Atlantic coast of county Clare.

The family’s involvement in seaweed harvesting goes back about 100 years, but it was revived in 2009 when the Taltys recognised the renewed level of interest in seaweed products. They started out harvesting the well-known traditional seaweeds dillisk and carrageen, but gradually expanded their range to over 15 edible sea vegetable varieties and opened a purpose built processing facility in 2012.

All of the seaweed in the Wild Irish Sea Veg range is hand-picked in the traditional sustainable way on a small scale along the west Clare coast, naturally air-dried, and certified organic. Wild Irish Sea Veg sell their dried seaweeds both in large pieces or crumbled in a seasoning format. Their products are available direct and through a number of foodservice distributors.

CULINARY USES • Stocks & Seasonings: Kombu seaweed was the food that Japanese scientist Kikunae Ikeda used to first identify ‘umami’, later recognised as the fifth taste. Use dried seaweeds to create that deep ‘savoury deliciousness’ of umami by crumbling or grinding dried dillisk to a powder as a seasoning or use it or Kombu as a base for stocks and broths.

• Vegetables & Salads: Sea vegetables provide a huge range of shapes, textures and flavours that can be used fresh dried or reconstituted as an accompaniment or incorporated into salads – try wakame or sea spaghetti. Wild Irish Sea Veg do a ‘Sea Salad’ that combines dilisk, wakame, sugar kelp, nori and sea lettuce for contrasting colours, flavours and textures.

• Garnish & Texture: Deep fried seaweed makes a great crisp to add texture to a dish – as well as being a handy, nutritious snack. Sheets of nori, traditionally used in sushi, can be used for wrapping or placing underneath dish elements. Small colourful seaweed, like red dillisk, adds a subtle, natural garnish.

Tel: 087-0922555 Trade enquiries: Evan Talty info@wildirishseaveg.com www.wildirishseaveg.com

• Desserts & Thickening: Seaweed is undoubtedly a savoury flavour, yet one of the most traditional Irish seaweed uses is in carrageen moss pudding, a milk pudding dessert in which carrageen acts as thickener and setting agent. Agar-agar is a seawed derivative and vegetarian gelatine substitute that is used to make gels, jellies, and to thicken sauces and soups.

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Partners in Food

PROFILE

BUYING FOR IRELAND’S

Biggest Hotel Group TONY McGUIGAN, HEAD OF PURCHASING/FOOD AND BEVERAGE MANAGER, DALATA HOTEL GROUP PLC, ON MANAGING THE FOOD AND BEVERAGE OFFERING FOR THE COUNTRY’S LARGEST AND CONTINUALLY EXPANDING HOTEL CHAIN. Q: What are the key aspects of your role as Head of Purchasing/ Food & Beverage Manager with the Dalata Hotel Group?

A: The role involves the tender for the supply of all goods and services for the group. I also look after the chefs within the group and the development of the food offer.

Q: Can you describe the relationship that you have with Keelings and with your food and beverage suppliers generally?

A: At Dalata we believe strongly in the development of

partnerships and understand that we get the best from our suppliers through this approach. Keelings would be a key example of this, as we have been working with the company for many years and, through Keelings, we have benefited from the exposure to quality Irish produce from their own farms, along with small high quality Irish growers who distribute through the Keelings network.

Q: Does Dalata adopt a generic approach to the purchasing of food and beverages at the numerous hotels that it owns and/or manages around the country?

A: More recently, with the expansion of Dalata-owned hotels and the development of our two hotel brands - Clayton and Maldron - we have been working to develop specific standards throughout the group. An example would be the Dalata breakfast, which is a healthy vitality selection.

This has led to a more specific approach to purchasing quality ingredients to improve the offer.

Colm Bury (left), Managing Director, Keelings Farm Fresh, with Tony McGuigan, Head of Purchasing/Food and Beverage Manager, Dalata Hotel Group Plc.

Dublin: +353 (0)1 895 5301

Wexford: +353 (0)53 9147447

Email: farmfresh@keelings.com

Cork: + 353 (0)21 4968088

Belfast: +44 2890324236

Web: www.keelings.com

Q: Has the role of Head of Purchasing evolved much over the years?

A: The purchasing role has evolved in many ways over the years and a big part of the evolution is the desire to work with the best Irish suppliers and develop their route to market through our distribution channels. I regularly meet with great Irish producers and I really enjoy the process of introducing them to our distributors, which gives us enhanced produce and helps small Irish producers to develop their business through our distribution network.

Q: What is your future vision for the Food & Beverage Operation in the Dalata Group?

A: The development of the new Clayton and Maldron Hotels with clear brand identities has led to the development of a clear food and beverage strategy within the Group. The Dalata vitality breakfast, the red bean roastery coffee dock concept, and a new meeting and events package will help us to roll out a clear identity and maintain consistency of product across the Group.

www.dalatahotelgroup.com

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SUPPLY

LINE ESSENTIAL PRODUCT KNOWLEDGE

FRANKE COFFEE SYSTEMS

CAPSULE COLLECTION The Steigenberger Grandhotel in Switzerland used the C250FM capsule machine from Franke Coffee Systems to serve its distinguished guests during the annual meeting in Davos last month. About 60 conference rooms in the five-star luxury hotel were equipped with the new C250FM capsule machine.

The Swiss coffee machine manufacturer Franke recently launched the new C200 and C250FM capsule machines in collaboration with capsule specialists K-fee System GmbH. The C200 and C250FM can produce three types of beverage - tea, coffee and mixed milk drinks - in a variety of flavours.

For more details see www.franke.co.uk

NESPRESSO

PROFESSIONAL BARISTA MACHINE Many hotels and restaurants see a premium coffee offering as a means of differentiation and Nespresso’s recently launched Aguila 220 barista machine is helping hospitality professionals to make their mark. The Aguila 220’s brewing unit makes it possible for up to 4,000 cups of coffee to be served a month. Two extraction heads allow simultaneous and fast beverage preparation during peak hours. The machine also features milk temperature regulation, three programmable cup sizes, four one-touch recipes, and 12 preprogrammed hot milk-based coffee recipes, all prepared at the touch of a button.

For further information, visit www.nespresso.com/pro/ie

NISBETS

‘CANTEEN COFFEE’ BRAND Nisbets brought ‘café culture’ to this years’ Food & Bev Live at Citywest in Dublin (February 16th and 17th). Highlights included Nisbets’ new ‘Canteen Coffee’ brand, a selection of ethically sourced beans, and ground and filtered coffee, which features the Medium Dark Arabica for premium espressos and shorter cups of coffee, the mixed Arabica and Robusta blend for serving milk-based coffees such as cappuccinos or lattes, and the full-bodied Canteen Cafetiere Java coffee and medium to light-bodied Canteen Cafetiere Ground Colombian coffee for cafetieres.

For further information visit www.nisbets.ie

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WINE

Portugal the Undiscovered

Wine Country

Portugal’s two main strengths as a European wine producing nation are the diversity of its wine styles and its wealth of native grape varieties. Our wine expert Jean Smullen takes a look at what the country has to offer.

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small country, occupying approximately one seventh of the Iberian Peninsula, it is long and narrow and runs 600km from north to south and 200km from west to east. Like Ireland, it has the Atlantic Ocean to the west, which influences the weather. Unlike Ireland, it borders Spain to the north and east.

The most important point of difference for Portuguese wines are the huge number of unique indigenous grape varieties it grows, grapes not found anywhere else in the wine world. Unique is its biggest selling point Portuguese wines are different. It is a wine country making wines with remarkable diversity and character from virtually unknown grape varieties.

Portugal’s coastal wine regions are strongly influenced by the Atlantic, which has a moderating effect on the climate and tends to be cooler. On the east coast of Portugal you have wonderful cool climate white wines produced in the region of Minho (to the north) and Lisboa (to the south). The climate here is maritime with sunny spells and scattered showers and terrain not dissimilar to the West of Ireland, except for the fact that there are lots of vines being grown. If you then take a car and drive 200km inland from Lisbon to Alentejo you come to a wine region with daytime summer temperatures as high as 40 degrees

where they make full bodied red wines that are almost ‘new world’ in style.

In Portugal, you will find red grapes with names such as Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz (also known as Tempranillo) and Castelao, producing full bodied red wines with wild berry fruit character and concentrated flavours in the wine regions of Douro, Dao or Alentejo.

Portugal also produces distinctive white wines made from white grapes - you have Fernao Pires with all its wonderful spiciness, Loueiro, Rupeiro and Anton Vaz making a very floral delicate style of white wine, and the crisp fresh acidic style of its most famous white wine, Vinho Verde, a wine produced in the Minho region in the north of Portugal.

Both the red and white wines produced in Portugal are exciting and innovative, not yet mainstream and therefore not widely available in supermarkets (as yet) so they offer the hotelier a different and distinctive portfolio of wine for their lists. We should also note the significant number of Irish who holiday in Portugal every year, enjoying their cuisine and wines, which usually sparks their interest on their return home.

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WINE

#Take the Tour ALENTEJO Alentejo is a large region of rolling plains that has extremely high summer temperatures and very low rainfall. The Alentejo is where Portugal’s climate finally escapes the Atlantic influence. Think of it as Portugal’s ‘new world’, with the potential to make extrovert, ripe wines with a taste of the sun about them. Traditional Portuguese grape varieties dominate the region but newcomers such as Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon are beginning to make in-roads, often blended with the local varieties.

Some white wines are made in the Alentejo but it is the reds that are forging the region’s reputation.

BOTH THE RED AND WHITE WINES PRODUCED IN PORTUGAL ARE EXCITING AND INNOVATIVE, NOT YET MAINSTREAM AND THEREFORE NOT WIDELY AVAILABLE IN SUPERMARKETS (AS YET), SO THEY OFFER THE HOTELIER A DIFFERENT AND DISTINCTIVE PORTFOLIO OF WINE FOR THEIR LISTS.

Portugal has more than 12 different wine regions, including the island of Madeira in the South Atlantic. Within the mainland regions there are over 50 DOC’s. Most produce wines with local grape varieties and all have something different to offer.

Portugal joined the EU in 1986 which has had a significant impact on the development and improvement of its wine industry. In the ensuing years, loans and grants for improving vineyards and wineries became readily available and this has been of great help in rebuilding small estates and large co-operatives which were developed in the early 20th century. Today, after 30 years of European investment, you find many modern wineries using up to the minute equipment producing top quality wines at a very competitive price.

Unlike other European countries though, Portugal does not fare well in terms of the identification of its wine styles. Despite a flourishing tourist industry, Portuguese wines still seem to fly below the radar in terms of consumer awareness. What the consumer does not realise is that Portugal has been demarcating its best wines since the 13th century and put a wine quality control system in place almost 200 years before the French did.

MINHO (VINHO VERDE) Vinho Verde is a cool climate region located in the north of Portugal between the River Minho in the north and the River Duero in the south. Both red and white wines come from this region, which is sometimes known as the Minho region. It is the largest demarcated region in Portugal. Vinho Verde, a low alcohol white wine, is the key wine here. Classic Vinho Verdes is bone dry with crisp apple-like acidity and is made from a blend of three grapes - Trajadura, Arinto and Loureiro.

DOURO The history of Port wine in the Douro is well documented but the pivotal point for the emergence of still wine making is much more recent. In 1986 when Portugal joined the European Union the true revolution in wine growing in the Douro region began to emerge. Producers in the Douro region became more independent and there was a huge increase in the number of small estates who began to produce red and white table wine. Still red wine from the Douro has a complex structure due to the combination of shale soil, climate, and the selection of traditional red grape varieties from the Douro region used to make their red wines Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Tinta Roriz and Tinta Barroca.

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CATERING REVIEW

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A QUICK CHAT

INSPIRATION: DANNY MEYER

Danny Meyer is one of the best restaurateurs. He’s probably one of the most successful restaurateurs in New York, if not the most successful.

His attitude is very inspiring – we could learn a lot from him.

KRISTAN BURNESS

MEAL: RISOTTO TARTUFO BIANCO

The current signature dish would definitely be the Bistecca Alla Fiorentina, which is a 32 ounce, dry aged T-bone steak for two people.

My favourite dish in the restaurant is the Risotto Tartufo Bianco. It’s a very plain parmesan risotto finished lavishly with white truffles. It is beyond simple but, if it is cooked perfectly, it is divine.

Our team produces indulgent contemporary Italian cuisine made from specially sourced ingredients – Irish dryaged prime cuts, milk-fed veal, and select local fish direct from Annagassan.

INGREDIENT: TRUFFLES

My favourite ingredient to work with in the kitchen is white truffles.

We currently have a beautiful white truffle risotto in the restaurant.

We wanted to return the Unicorn to its former glory as the ‘go-to’ dining destination in Dublin.

It is part of the city’s unique and proud restaurant heritage and people are happy to see its future secured.

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If the restaurant team is trained to be hospitable it makes the customer’s overall experience of the restaurant ten times better than if they walk in and get a frosty reception.

Hotel & Catering Review’s Orla Connolly talks to Kristan Burness, Chef/Owner of The Unicorn

by Fiorentina, about his approach to authentic Italian cuisine.

WISH LIST: BIGGER COLD ROOM

We have all the gadgets so we could just do with more refrigeration space.

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