Hotel and Restaurant Times Dec'14/Jan'15

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COVER: Des O’Mahony, CEO, Bookassist (photo, Jason Clarke Photography)

CONTENTS NEWS APPOINTMENT 2014 REVIEW CATEX 2015 BEWLEYS AT CATEX DES O’MAHONY INTERVIEW FÁILTE IRELAND IN FOCUS MINISTER MICHAEL RING INTERVIEWED RAI NEWS TOURISM IRELAND NEWS BOOKASSIST FÁILTE IRELAND NEWS iNUA 2014 AT TOURISM IRELAND IRISH HOTELS ROUND-UP 2014 GMIT NEWS THE RISE AND FALL OF HOTEL BRANDS IMAGE MATTERS DIT NEWS JAVA REPUBLIC IFSA NEWS YEAR REVIEW

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Hotel & Restaurant Times is circulated on subscription to Chief Executives, Directors and Proprietors of Hotels and Restaurants in Ireland along with Architects, Interior Designers and Suppliers to the Hotel and Restaurant Industry.

Managing Editor: Cyril McAree (01-6285447, cyril@hotelandrestauranttimes.ie) Business Development: Alan Doherty (01-2842909, alan@hotelandrestauranttimes.ie) Contributors: Pavel Barter, Cynthia Bifolchi, Frank Corr, Dr. Des O'Mahony, Fáilte Ireland, IFSA, Tourism Ireland, Restaurants Association of Ireland, Conor Power, Susan Clarke, GMIT, DIT. Printing: W G Baird All paper used in the production of this magazine comes from certifiably sustainable forestry.

ALL CONTENTS OF THE MAGAZINE ARE COPYRIGHT OF HOTEL & RESTAURANT TIMES: H&R HOUSE, CARTON COURT, MAYNOOTH, CO. KILDARE. TEL/FAX: 01 628 5447.

E-MAIL: editorial@hotelandrestauranttimes.ie WEB: www.hotelandrestauranttimes.ie H&RT DECEMBER ‘14/JANUARY ‘15

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A year of ups and downs The year began with some uncertainty, with the industry almost scared to say things were improving. So often in the past, such utterances tempted fate, in a negative way.

The fist chink of light was the announcement of dates for a Garth Brooks great comeback tour. He wanted to kick it all off in Dublin. Hoteliers and restaurateurs' alike were elated with such a potential cash injection to an uncertain market. Media buzzed with reports. Footage of the queues of ticket purchasers were beamed by all media from TV to print worldwide. It looked like a bonanza unthinkable in the dreary years just past. Stories of €600 room rates became common place. Overseas interest was immense with Brooks fans wanting to be here for the event. And then the announcement of a further two concerts: a total of five, unheard of in Ireland for a comeback tour. Everyone was on board, or so we thought… Within a few months, disaster struck. The event was subject to objection and a shambolic series of hearings etc put pay to the concerts. The industry reeled. It looked like total disaster.

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However, quietly in the background, the visitors were beginning to arrive in numbers not seen since 2007. The markets that had imploded just a few years ago, began to show growth. The North American and GB tourists had put Ireland back on their bucket list. Recent statements from both Tourism Ireland and Fáilte Ireland showed the true extent of this growth. Initiatives like the Wild Atlantic Way, were it seemed, just the tonic that was needed, as Shaun Quinn noted in his recent presentation of the year in review: “The Wild Atlantic Way is the first of those big ideas that resonate,” he said, when questioned at the state tourism body’s End of Year Review in Dublin earlier this month.

“That’s a project that’s going to take, we believe, a decade of investment. It’s not a onehit-wonder - it’s going to continue. Based on the feedback from the visitors, we believe that it’s working really well but we’ve got to make sure that it becomes a top-notch product.”

These sentiments were echoed by Niall Gibbons of Tourism Ireland who acknowledged that almost every market has improved with a revenue growth in the region of 7% been reported. In his review he stated, “Almost every market is back to record growth, which is great,” says Niall Gibbons, chief executive of all-Ireland tourism marketing group Tourism Ireland, pointing out that revenue growth at 7% is currently outstripping visitor number growth of 6%. “I think that a key thing for us will be ensuring that we invest in those markets that deliver the best return… Britain, US, France and Germany being the key focus.” He warned against complacency: “I think that people are aware of that and the reduction in VAT did help. As the Minister said recently, it’s important that value for money becomes the watch-word in the years ahead, because there’s no new significant supply coming onto the market and certainly our major urban centres like Cork, Dublin and Galway do have price-and-availability issues at the peak part of the season.”

So as we head into 2015, it looks like tourism is back in a place of confidence and growth. Employment numbers continue to increase within the sector. VAT has been retained at 9% and early indicators are the overseas bookings are on the up, so looks like the hard work is paying dividends. Once again, long may it continue…

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Cyril McAree Editor

NEWS

NEWS Hospitality manager of the year

Michelin Star chefs step up for mental health

IHI manager of the year award was presented recently to Paul Gallagher, General Manager, Buswells Hotel, Dublin at the recent Irish Hospitality Institute Founders’ Banquet and Hospitality Management Awards 2014, presided by Nicky Logue, FIHI President IHI, the gala event was held at the Aviva Stadium, Dublin.

Caption: (l-r): Liam Kavanagh, The Irish Times; Paul Gallagher, General Manager, Buswells Hotel, Dublin; Nicky Logue, FIHI, President Irish Hospitality Institute (IHI).

Ring unveils National Tourism Awards initiative

The Minister of State for Tourism and Sport, Michael Ring TD has launched the Irish Tourism Industry Awards 2015, the first national scheme to identify and celebrate leading lights that are making a difference in the tourism industry and contributing to recent growth in the sector. Full details of the awards and application process are available at www.irishtourismindustryawards.ie

Twelve of Ireland’s top Michelin-starred chefs have stepped out of their comfort zone and into a charity calendar, to raise vital funds to support young adults in Ireland with mental health difficulties. Some top chefs involved include Masterchef Oliver Dunne, L’Ecrivain’s Derry Clarke, Kevin Thornton, Chapter’s One’s Ross Lewis, Gary O’ Hanlon, Residence’s talented Graham Neville, Raymond Mc Ardle, RTE’s Kevin Dundon and many more.

The ‘Walk in My Shoes’ 2015 calendar features 12 of Ireland’s top chefs, 12 recipes, 12 quotes and 12 pictures- photographed by photographer Barry Mc Call and styled by Courtney Smith. The calendar will sell online on walkinmyshoes.ie for €12 and in Fitzpatrick’s Shoes at no. 76 Grafton Street. All funds raised will go to ‘Walk in My Shoes’.

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NEWS

Premiere Suites opens for business

Jim Murphy, Chief Executive Officer, PREM Group with Heather Randall (left) and Kela Breslin (right) Synergy Apartments at the official opening of Premier Suites Dublin Ballsbridge, the new collection of luxury suites at Merrion Hall, Ballsbridge. Part of PREM Group, one of Ireland’s leading hotel management companies, the unique Victorian property has been extensively and refurbished to create 46 spacious suites, with some enjoying private entrances and terraces.

Dublin butcher secures exclusive deal on beef, lamb, game and wallaby Wholesale butchers M&K Meats and their retail outlets, The Market Butchers, are known to discerning meat lovers and chefs as the exclusive distributors of Connemara Hill Lamb and O’Doherty’s Black Bacon. These two premium Irish meat products boast a unique flavour and character that is derived from the unique habitat in which the animals are reared: the heather-rich hills of Connemara and, for O’Doherty’s lucky pigs, a private island in Fermanagh’s lakelands. Now M&K Meats have secured a ten-year exclusive deal with the guardians of another unique farming habitat just 12 miles from Dublin city centre but a world apart - to bring to market sustainable stocks of Lambay Island farm produce which includes beef, lamb and wild game.

For more information on M&K Meats, see www.themarketbutchers.ie, www.mkmeats.eu or contact Michael Bermingham at m.bermingham@mkmeats.eu, or on 01 458 7942.

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Menu for the mindful

Michelin-star chef and restaurateur Mark Sargeant is calling on Ireland’s top young chefs to enter the 18th annual KNORR Student Chef of the Year competition that will take place at Belfast Metropolitan College February 2015. The students will be challenged to create a menu that demonstrates strong sustainable credentials, incorporating food waste management techniques and an appreciation of the new allergen legislation effective from 13th December.

The closing date for applications is Friday, 23rd January 2015. Visit www.ufs.com/knorrstudentchef for all competition information.

Still got the blues Michelle Maguire, Ireland’s Blue Book, introducing Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Paschal Donohoe to the properties joining the Blue Book collection for 2015.

Three is the magic number

Ireland’s largest group of independent hotels - Manor House Hotels and Irish Country Hotels - has welcomed Northern Ireland’s Galgorm Resort & Spa and Co. Kerry based Teach de Broc and The Sneem Hotel to the portfolio, bringing the combined number of hotels up to 53. The move follows the group’s recent announcement that its sales and marketing strategy had delivered a 13% increase in bed night bookings and a 20% increase in revenue when compared to 2013.

NEWS

Euro-Toques Young Chef of 2014 announced.

New York state of mind

Matthew Logan (22) from Chapter One has been awarded the coveted 2014 Eurotoques Young Chef of the Year title at the annual final event, took place at an exclusive pop up event on Capel Street. Matthew was one of five finalists who battled it out and will now embark on an all-expenses paid stage, at the worldrenowned The Square London, where he will work under the direction of two star Michelin chef Philip Howard.

Alison Metcalfe, Tourism Ireland’s head of North America, accepting the “best destination: Europe” award for Ireland, at the Travel Weekly Readers Choice Awards in New York.

‘Willkommen’ in Ireland for German travel professionals

A show of strength

German travel agents and tour operators with Aifric Campbell, Tourism Ireland (fourth left), at the Lia Fáil stone on the Hill of Tara.

The Irish Hotels Federation’s 2015 Showtel Trade Exhibition, which is a part of the IHF’s Annual Conference, takes place in the Slieve Russell Hotel, Ballyconnell, Co. Cavan on the 23rd and 24th February 2015. The event is being held against a backdrop of increased optimism in the hotel and guesthouse sector on foot of an upturn in the domestic market and an almost 10% growth in overseas visitors year to date.

For further information on the IHF Showtel Trade Exhibition, stand sizes, prices and associate packages, contact Stephanie Keating on 014976459 or by email at showtel@ihf.ie. A copy of the Showtel brochure and floor plan can also be accessed at www.ihf.ie.

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NEWS

Marriage made in heaven

Sheen Falls Lodge, located in the Kingdom of Kenmare are proud to announce their most recent awards for Best 5 Star Wedding Venue and Best Exclusive Wedding Venue in Ireland, as voted for after analysis of reviews and testimonials was taken by WeddingDates.ie, from happy couples who celebrated their wedding in the hotel.

Minister Donohoe establishes new group to drive Dublin tourism Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Paschal Donohoe TD, has announced the establishment of a group to develop a brand identity for Dublin, drive tourism in the capital forward and allow us to compete competitively for market share with other cities across Europe. The group, which is being set up under Fáilte Ireland and will be known as the ‘Grow Dublin Tourism Alliance’, will be led by the Chairman of Bord Bia, Michael Carey.

Fáilte Ireland €850,000 richer Additional €850,000 for Fáilte Ireland will aid the promotion of Wild Atlantic Way and Dublin.

Minister of State for Tourism, Michael Ring TD, said the provision of an additional €850,000 for Fáilte Ireland, much of which will be invested in developing the web presence of the Wild Atlantic Way (WAW) and Dublin.

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Net result

Dublin-based technology, design and marketing Company Net Affinity is rounding off a successful year with a host of international awards and nominations. In 2014, Net Affinity, one of the world’s leading booking engine technology providers, were presented with six design awards which include Gold and Silver from the W_ Awards, two Web Awards for Responsive Website Design, winners of the Silver Award at the Davey Awards and two International Hotel Awards. Net Affinity were also honoured with a range of nominations, including the Eircom Spider Awards in the Travel Website of the Year category, shortlisted for ‘Best Mobile Solution’ at the Eye for Travel Mobile Innovation Awards, and named a finalist in the Samsung Digital Media Awards in the ‘Best in Travel and Tourism’ award.

Drinks are on the house The 2nd DIT Monin Cocktail Challenge recently took place between the DIT Bar Management Studies and attracted 70 mixologists.

Prizes were awarded for the top non-alcohol cocktails presented and best technical performance. All cocktails were based on Monin premium syrups and purees, points were awarded for the appearance, aroma, taste and the commercial appeal of the cocktails.

Taoiseach welcomes establishment of Centre for Competitiveness A globally-renowned competitiveness organisation is setting up a subsidiary in the Republic of Ireland, to replicate its success north of the border. A founding member of the Global Federation of Competitive Councils and a partner of the E u r o p e a n Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM), the new Centre for Competitiveness, Ireland (CCI) will be located at the CityWest Business Campus, in Dublin, and will promote and implement EFQM’s Business Excellence Framework in key sectors and organisations.

NEWS

Double gold in Belgrade

Ring rolls in 2015 Minister of State for Tourism & Sport Michael Ring TD has announced that funding of €1.945m has been approved by Fáilte Ireland under its National Festivals and Events Programme for 16 key national festivals and events - with significant international appeal to take place next year.

You’ve got to Noel with it Two students from the Department of Tourism & Hospitality at the Cork Institute of Technology returned victorious today having being awarded gold medals in their competition category at the annual AEHT Competitions in Serbia. Saoirse O’Brien, a student in the Higher Certificate in Culinary Studies and Finbarr Collins, a student in the Bachelor of Business in Hospitality Management, beat off stiff competition to win their competitions.

Compass Group wins NI environmental performance

Noel Recruitment has won the Hospitality Agency of the year 2014 award for the 7th year running at the National Recruitment Federation (NRF) 2014 Awards as well as scooping the Large Recruitment Agency of the year award.

Operating an 11 branch network nationally, Noel Recruitment is one of Ireland’s longest established and largest recruitment brands.

NYF 2015 Dublin

Compass Group Ireland has retained its Platinum status in the annual Northern Ireland Environmental Benchmarking Survey, placing the group in the top three scoring companies in the Food and Drink sector. Now in its sixteenth year, the Survey, generated by Business in the Community’s ARENA Network campaign and supported by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency and Charles Hurst Fleet Financial, annually assesses top businesses in Northern Ireland for environmental management, performance and assurance.

Keeping up relations Ten of Ireland’s PR professionals were honoured as fellows of the Public Relations Institute of Ireland (PRII) recently as part of the institute’s annual diploma graduation ceremony. According to the PRII, the fellowships are awarded in recognition of significant career achievements and contribution to the industry. Amongst those presented with fellowship scrolls by the institute’s president, Niall Quinn, was Alex Connolly, head of communications, Fáilte Ireland.

Minister Paschal Donohoe pictured at the launch of Ireland’s biggest New Year’s event, NYF Dublin which planned to turn Dublin city into a bustling hive of activity for 3 days leading up to 1 January with something for all ages and tastes from the NYF Dublin. Three Countdown Concert, Procession of Light, Luminosity, NYF Food Village, NYF Music Trail, Love Dublin to Resolution Day all formed part of the events.

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NEWS

Abbey and he knows it

APPOINTMENTS Coast is clear Michelle Devaney has been appointed Sales and Marketing Executive at The Connemara Coast Hotel in Furbo. On completion of a Masters in Strategic Marketing at NUIG, Michelle was employed by NUIG - working as a Marketing Research Assistant on an EU funded project and as a Part-Time Lecturer.

Michelle is currently completing a Postgraduate Diploma in Digital Marketing with the Digital Marketing Institute. From Spiddal, Michelle is a native Irish speaker.

Clubbing together The 5 star Glenlo Abbey Hotel in Galway has announced the appointment of a new General Manager. Rory O'Sullivan, a native of Kenmare in Kerry, worked alongside the Brennan Brothers - John & Francis of ‘At Your Service’ fame for the last 8 years as General Manager of The Park Hotel Kenmare. Prior to that, he worked as General Manager of the 4* Castle Hotel Macroom in Cork and also spent time in Dubai, France and Australia. Whilst in Dubai, Rory worked with the Jumeirah group of hotels and spent time in the flagship hotel the Burj Al Arab.

Manning the battlements at Fitzwilliam Castle

Michael McDonagh has recently been promoted to Coast Club Manager at The Connemara Coast Hotel Leisure Centre. A native of Lettermore, Co. Galway, Michael previously held the role of Leisure Centre Supervisor at the Coast Club for a number of years before traveling to Canada. Michael’s qualifications include ITEC Diploma’s in Gym Instruction and Aerobics, along with Kettlebell, Lifeguard and Boxercise Instruction.

A coastal retreat The Connemara Coast Hotel has appointed Lorraine Foran to Coast Club Supervisor. A Health and Leisure Bachelor of Science Degree graduate of Institute of Technology Tralee, Lorraine previously held the role of Duty Manager at Killeline Leisure Centre in Limerick.

Let’s get down to business Aramark Ireland, the country’s leading integrated services provider has announced the appointment of Ivan Mannion as Business Development Manager. In his role, Ivan will be responsible for sales and business development in their Facilities Management Services business, Workplace Solutions.

Catering for all seasons Compass Group Ireland is proud to announce that the group’s operations manager, Tobias Schoch, has been awarded the 2014 IHI Hospitality Manager of the Year - Catering. The category celebrates senior managers in the Irish catering industry and heralds exceptional ability, performance and professionalism in a managerial food services role. Schoch accepted the accolade, awarded by the Irish Hospitality Institute, at a presentation ceremony and banquet in the Aviva Stadium.

Paul Grehan has been appointed the new Human Resource Manager at Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel where he will be responsible for overseeing all of the hotel’s HR activities. Prior to taking up his new role at Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel, Paul worked for 5 years as part of the management team with responsibility for Food and Beverages at the Radisson Blu, Dublin Airport Hotel. Before this role, Paul spent 5 years with the Talbot Hotel Group and was based in the Stillorgan Park Hotel where he worked as Restaurant Manager and HR Manager before progressing to Group HR Manager. Paul was also part of the pre-opening team at the Merrion Hotel, Dublin where he started working in the restaurant.

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Stepping up to the plate Aramark Ireland, the country’s leading integrated services provider, has announced that Derek Reilly has joined the company as Culinary Director. In his role, Derek will be responsible for driving all culinary development across Aramark’s Food Services division, leading food innovation and working closely with suppliers to promote the use of seasonal and locally sourced products. He will also work together with the Business Excellence team, ensuring quality, variety and consistency across the company’s menus.

Derek brings with him over 25 years’ experience across the hospitality sector, working alongside some of the country’s leading chefs including Pierre Koffmann, Derry Clarke, Paul Rankin, Kevin Dundon and Rachel Allen, to name but a few.

2014 REVIEW

Falling madly in love with Ireland (again) Three top tourism heads reflect on a year that saw tourism figures bounce back Getting the big things right is something that the Fáilte Ireland/Tourism Ireland pairing have clearly managed to achieve over the last couple of years, persuading record numbers of Americans and several other nationalities to fall madly in love with Ireland again.

The Gathering was the big fat simple idea that worked and the effective rebranding and packaging of our entire West Coast and everything and everybody in it under the banner of “The Wild Atlantic Way” seems to have been another stroke of absolute ingenuity in putting a pretty hat on something that has always been there.

“The Wild Atlantic Way is the first of those (big ideas that resonate),” said Fáilte Ireland Chief Executive Shaun Quinn, when questioned at the state tourism body’s End of Year Review in Dublin earlier this month.

“That’s a project that’s going to take, we believe, a decade of investment. It’s not a one-hit-wonder - it’s going to continue.

Based on the feedback from the visitors, we believe that it’s working really well but we’ve got to make sure that it becomes a top-notch product.

“We’re working on a new brand proposition for the south and east, built around a heritage trail stretching from round about Louth and the Boyne Valley all the way down to Waterford and the Vikings. The research is very promising for that idea.”

Quinn also spoke of the industry “cutting its costs” over the last few years and that now it was all about bringing in more business.

It’s certainly hard to argue with that kind of sensible logic - improve your product and bring more people in. One only hopes that our cost-cutting hasn’t been an entirely hap-hazard event caused by worldwide/Irish recession and that the good value element will remain in place.

2015 will, it is hoped, turn out to be a record year in terms of tourism numbers, with a similar jump in tourism figures expected. This expectation is based on feedback from people in the industry who are already taking orders from those planning to have a good time in our little country next year.

Fáilte Ireland Chief Executive, Shaun Quinn

Keen to acknowledge the importance of the home market in sustaining a viable tourism industry network, Quinn referred to it as “the bedrock of the industry... we need the home market to continue to perform so there’s no taking our foot off the pedal. In fact, we’ll be going out to try and get a bit more growth out of it (the home market) in 2015. That’s our plan, but the home market is a rate-driven market.”

Speaking of rates, it does seem that so far at least, Ireland has not bounced back to its oft-perceived position as a place offering poor value for money. According to figures produced by the national tourism marketing organisation, visitor perception figures show a continual flow of positivity on this issue over the last 5 years, with some 60% of visitors in 2014 now deeming the Irish tourist experience as a “good” value-for-money one. Only 8% said it was poor value and 32% said it was fair

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2014 REVIEW value. This is an impressive turnaround from 2009 when 29% said it was good value, 31% said it was fair and 41% labelled the Ireland holiday as bad value for money.

But there’s no place for any complacency, the Fáilte Ireland boss pointed out, as the European tourism market we’re in is not showing rapid growth: “If we want to grow, it means that we’ll have to steal somebody else’s lunch which means that it’s no good being as good as somebody else - you’ve got to be better. So we’ve got to offer better value and service and have more interesting things to do.”

Key amongst those who are at the coal face providing services is the hotel sector.

2014 saw a significant rise in confidence, with accommodation types across all sectors registering an increase in occupancy rates as well as increases in profitability and a rosy outlook for 2015, with 80% of hotels anticipating further growth.

“We’re also delighted to see the increase in overseas visitors,” says current head of the Irish Hotels Federation Stephen McNally. “Numbers were up by half a million in the first 10 months of the year; and that 9% increase is building on growth of 7% last year. So it’s very positive for hotels and restaurants right around the country.”

Exciting figures, but is it sustainable for an industry that is wishing for long-term growth?

“We think that it is,” says McNally, pointing to the increased air links into the country for next year, as well as the continued bedroom space to soak up the increases: “I don’t think that hotel capacity is an issue. In the vast majority of places, there are plenty of hotel bedrooms around the country. Where there is perhaps a tight squeeze on some space would be in central Dublin at certain times of the year when there are large events on.

“You have to remember that we built a lot of hotels in the mid-2000s, when we increased our bedroom capacity by over 25%.

“Almost every market is back to record growth, which is great,” says Niall Gibbons, chief executive of all-Ireland tourism marketing group Tourism Ireland, pointing out that revenue growth at 7% is currently outstripping visitor number growth of 6%.

“I think that a key thing for us will be ensuring that we invest in those markets that deliver the best return... Britain, US, France and Germany being the key focus.”

Niall Gibbons is also confident that the Irish tourism product will remain a viable one, but is mindful of guarding against complacency: “I think that people are aware of that and the reduction in VAT did help. As the

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Niall Gibbons, Chief Executive of Tourism Ireland

Minister said recently, it’s important that value for money becomes the watch-word in the years ahead, because there’s no new significant supply coming onto the market and certainly our major urban centres like Cork, Dublin and Galway do have price-and-availability issues at the peak part of the season.

“In terms of the capacity of the infrastructure, there is no question that value for money is vital because we got to a situation in 2007 where Ireland became uncompetitive and it took us several years to restore our reputation, which is now good.”

Another potential cloud on the horizon that could directly affect our national hotel product is that of wage pressures. Already, there have been calls in some quarters for the minimum wage to be increased. After such a long period of austerity measures, there is a growing sentiment amongst the work force in all sectors that a pay increase is in order; particularly in an industry with such positive growth figures as the hotel and tourism sector.

“Ultimately, it will be up to each individual to deal with that,” says McNally. “The way we would see it is that some companies will certainly be looking at a plan for their wages for next year and they’re obviously watching out for what government are going to come up with - what they’ll introduce and what they’ll not introduce.

But I’m sure that you’ll see that in certain parts of the country where there has been good growth, that this will be reflected in wage policy.”

McNally also points out that it is important to maintain standards in the hotel industry and that will mean investment to carry out some overdue physical improvements in order to ensure customer tourist satisfaction levels in the future: “The big thing for 2015 from an hotelier’s point of view is that many of the hotels in Ireland will need to refurbish. A lot the hotel product has probably been starved of capital over the last 5-10 years because of the crisis. We’ll create more jobs by doing this sort of work.”

A key component of the Irish tourism industry’s recovery is the health of the

2014 REVIEW

Irish Hotels Federation Stephen McNally

American market while the European one remains relatively moribund. The American tourist spends more than just about any other tourist in the world and seems easily charmed by us clever little folk who all speak an amusing form of their language.But will the Americans continue to be persuaded going into the future?

Niall Gibbons points out that there is a sea change in the type of visitor coming to Ireland from America: “10 years ago, 70% of American tourists who came to Ireland had an ancestral connection. Now, it’s something like 30% and the significant growth that we’re seeing is from the Southern States and California.”

This is a significant alteration in the marketing of Ireland as a tourist destination to Americans, whose numbers set a record in 2014; one that they look like surpassing next year. According to Gibbons, there are three main segments in the US market - one is the slightly-older culturally curious person who tends to stay longer and spend well.

“We’re also seeing a lot more of the younger independent type of traveller as well; who tend to come from the East Coast and who are looking for a slightly shorter break of maybe 4 or 5 days.

“The American market is exceptionally good for us... we’ve seen very strong growth in the last couple of years... we see further growth next year; we’ve got good connectivity coming in, with Aer Lingus putting on a third daily flight from New York and we’ve got a daily service from Washington DC, with United putting on an additional flight from Washington DC as well. We’ll also have the San Francisco flight going daily next year.”

There are, of course, a lot of new routes for next year, which collectively form the basis of so much optimism in terms of tourist numbers for 2015, but the vast majority of these routes are coming into Dublin. Only recently, there was an online campaign by concerned Munster residents that the dropping of many routes in and out of Cork would see less and less people coming into the southern half of Ireland and more and more of a concentration on Dublin. Since the failure of Swansea-Cork Ferries and the subsequent failure of its replacement service (started by ordinary citizens in Munster and without any State support), there has been no direct ferry service from the UK to anywhere in Munster since 2012, while new ferry routes to France in the last couple of years have been from Rosslare and Dublin. A cause for concern of over-concentration of the tourism product in one area and all the

accompanying pressures on price inflation for the visiting tourist?

“Why would we change it?” asks Niall Gibbons. “The bottom line is that the airport goes out and wins the routes, so we need to make sure that the routes are successful. We’d like to see routes coming into other airports too, but the bottom line is that it’s our job to ensure to get people to Ireland and for them to see as much of the country as they possibly can.

“We have seen a huge increase in the amount of traffic going into Dublin Airport but we’ve seen a big increase in the amount of traffic into Shannon as well particularly with the abolition of the Air Travel Tax, which has been a great measure.”

“There’s great collaboration between the hotel sector and the tourism agencies,” says McNally. “We’re working very closely together - something which is very important as we go forward. Numbers will continue to grow when everybody’s working well together. I think that has been the mainstay over the last number of years.

The Irish Hotels Federation, the government tourism agencies and other organisations have worked very closely together to ensure that we deliver on the guest experience and that we’re able to work off each other and we do a lot of promotions together, whether it be around Ireland or around Europe.”

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CATEX 2015

All the world’s a stage as CATEX 2015 competitions hot up!

The country’s most promising talent in the foodservice industry are set to take part in some of the most exciting industry competitions to date at the landmark 50th anniversary of CATEX 2015. The Bartenders Association of Ireland, The Specialty Coffee Association of Europe (Irish Chapter) and Chef Ireland have just released details of the competitions, which take place during the three-day showcase at the RDS, Dublin on 17-19 February 2015.

Irelands top baristas will compete in the finals of the Irish Barista Championship, the Irish Latte Art Championship and the Irish Cup Tasters Championship form part of a packed schedule of events at CATEX 2015, sponsored by Bunzl and Calor.

The coffee championships are organised

by SCAE Ireland, the Irish branch of the Speciality Coffee Association of Europe, and will see Ireland’s greatest coffee professionals battle to become National Champions and earn the right to represent Ireland in the World Barista Championship (SCAA Event, Seattle, 9-12 April); Latte Art Championship and World Cup Tasters Championship (World of Coffee Gothenburg, 16-18 June).

Taking place over the three-days of CATEX 2015, the championship deciders

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follow the Barista and Latte Art semi finals held at the first Dublin Coffee & Tea Festival in September. The new Festival was supported by the Irish Foodservice Suppliers Alliance, owners of CATEX, and will now host the semi finals of the championships each year.

‘It is a very exciting time to be involved in coffee in Ireland,’ explains Damian Marshall, SCAE Ireland events organiser. ‘We are undergoing a coffee revolution and there is huge interest in events such as the Irish Barista Championship, Latte Art Championship and Cup Tasters Championship which help raise standards in coffee and increase awareness of speciality coffee. We are counting down the days to CATEX 2015 and are looking forward to putting on a great show to celebrate the event’s 50th anniversary.’

The finalists competing at CATEX 2015 are: Irish Barista Championship Bruno Ferreira Silva Khedun Viswarnath Mark Ashbridge Natalia Piotrowska Vinicius Arruda Wojciech Tysler Latte Art Championship Darina Homolova Dave Regan Dumitru Postovan Luis Alvarez Magdalena Niedbalka Renata Khedun * Cup Tasters finalists to be confirmed Meanwhile, mixology masters from across the country will shake up the stage at Ireland’s biggest and most influential foodservice event when they gather at CATEX

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CATEX 2015

Catex 17–19 February 2015 100percent Italy - E15 A Taste of Italy MOAK - M1 AIB Merchant Services - D32 Air Products - B37 Altro Limited - A14 Applewood Farm Produce Ltd - CC27 AOD Contract Furnishings Ltd - M19 Aryzta Food Solutions - F21/G22 Asia Market - C5 Asgaard Packaging - A30 Atlantis Seafood Kilmore Quay -CC20 Automatic Amusements - C16 Avonmore - D27/E30 Bailey Hygiene Solutions - J15 Bailies Coffee Company - F29 Ballymaloe Country Relish - J13 BD Foods - H21 Bewleys Coffee & Tea Ltd. - F26 Black Castle Drinks Ltd - CC19 Bluebell Falls Ltd - CC16 Bord Gáis Networks - H17 Brady Catering - F20 Brakes - N1/N28 Bunzl Irish Merchants - E3 Bunzl McLaughlin - E3 Bunzl Rafferty - E3 Business Support Systems - D10 Calor Gas - H1 Captiva Software Ltd - C24/C26 Carbon Removal Systems - C40 Cashguard Ireland - B31 CBE - C17 CDR Technical Services Ltd - F31 Chambers Engineering Ltd - C19 Churchill China UK Ltd - C15 Catering Innovation Agency - M9 Coeliac Society of Ireland - M7 Combico - C11 Coppinger Corporate Uniforms - E10 Corcoran Food Equipment - E23/F24 Cultuzz UK & Ireland Ltd - A28 Daisy Cottage Farm - CC3 Dantes Foodservice Ltd - CC21 Delpac - B22 Derry’s Ltd - C9 Devlins Retail Systems - C38 Donna Italia - CC10 Down Sauce Company Ltd - M18 Doyles Bakery - A21 Duke & Company Ltd - M3/M6 DWS Supplies Ltd - G25 Easiyo Foodservice- D9 Enowine - A22/A26 Enviroclad Systems - A2 EU Beverage Net - B19 Finest Call Cocktail Mixes - M5 First Choice Catering Spares - D15 First Choice Purchasing - J17a Fit Fuel - CC5 Flahavans - D21 Follain Teo - CC2 Food Safety Authority Ireland - E20 Forbo Flooring - B15 Fridge Rentals - H16 FSPA - B35 Galgorm Group - J7/J9 GH Enterprises - H2 Glana - J11 Glana - B7/C8 Glass 2 Sand Ireland - B9 Goodness Grains / Livefree - CC22 Gortrush Trading - A32 Gourmet Foodcraft Ltd - C3 Henderson Group - G11/F11 Higgins & Company Ltd - J22 Hugh Jordan - H11 Hygiene Management Systems - C4 IFSA - G23

Ille Paper Service (IR) Ltd - B21-B23 Instore Vision - C13 Improper Butter - CC7 International Glassware & Pottery Ltd. - D28 InfoSoft NI Ltd - M11 Invest Northern Ireland - H14/H15 Italicatessen Ltd - G27 Janet’s Country Fayre - CC9 Java Republic - E21 JD Catering Supplies - F34 Jimo Cooling Technology - C25 JJ Darboven - G28 Katerbay Ltd - C42 Kendermar Distributors Ltd - H10 Keoghs Farm- D22 Kepak Convenience Foods - H18 Khan Entrprises - B24 Kiernan’s Food Ingredients Ltd - D23 Kish Fish - CC15 La Vie Del Te - CC26 Le Patissier - CC8 Lissadell - Liddell - E13 Liquor Control - B27 Lynas Foodservice Ltd - A7-B20 Lyreco - F23 Mainly Menus - B41 Marco Beverage Systems - F27 Martin Food Equipment - G21/H22 Massey for Catering Equipment- C23 Matthew Algie - E25 McCabe Design Group - B39 McDonnells (Queen Street) Ltd - C13 McLoughlins Butchers - CC14 Miele - C29 Michael Flannery Catering Supplies- H9 Milano Coffee Systems - G15 Millimetre Designs - M4 Modern Labelling and Printing Systems A18 Money Point - J5 MONIN - G30 Moolicious Foods Ltd - C30 Multi-Release Products - B5 Murphy Bakery, Catering + Laundry Equipment- G1 National Hygiene Partnership - B33 Natural Frozen Foods Ltd - M13 Nestlé Cereals - F15 Nestlé Professional - F18 Newbridge Silverware - G29/H30 Newgrange Gold - CC11 Nice Fruit - C21 Nisbets - D17 Noel Recruitment - H24 North South Retail - H23 OBS Storage Supplies Ltd - J2

O’Hagan Design - E17 O’Meara Camping Ireland Ltd - G31 Orkin Pest Control - C1 Over and Above - E26 Paddy O’s - CC1 Pacific Foods - J17 Pallas Foods - K5 PEL Waste Reduction Equipment - J12 The Penny Loaf - CC18 Pestguard Environmental Service-A8 PizzaSi - H32 Embassy of Poland - C44 Prestige Foods - B1 Priory Press Packaging - M17 ProViro Grease Management Ltd - A6 RAI - M2 Rational UK Ltd - D11 RDI Systems Ltd - M14 Redmond Fine Foods Ltd - G18 Rosie and Jim Gourmet Foods - C34 Rubbermaid - H26 SCA Hygiene Products UK Ltd - D2 Scratch My Pork - CC24 Scribbles - C10/C12 Seery’s Bakery - CC4 Servequip Kitchen Systems - G17 Shoes for Crews - D5 Single Source Ltd - D25 Slowey Systems - B11 www.slush.ie - D31/E32 Solaris Botanicals - CC12 Sosa Ingredients - G18 Steelite International PLC - G16 Stephens Catering Equipment - E11 Sushi King - CC6 Tamnagh Foods - CC23 Tekspek - D8 The Cupcake Store - CC13 The Dining Room - Z12 Till Now Limited - G34 Tilwatch - C14 Timepoint Ltd - B13 Total Produce - F17 Trailblazer BBQ - J1 UCC Coffee - F25 Velox Grills - F22 Wallbridge Ltd - D1 Watermark - C27 Weighing Machine Services - E1 Western Hygiene Ltd - G19/G20 Wicked Desserts - CC17 Wild Irish Game - J19 Wildberry Bakery - CC25 Willowbrook Foods - B43 Winelab - M12 Wireless Solutions - C36

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CATEX 2015 2015 for three major cocktail competitions.

The competitions, organised by the Bartenders Association of Ireland (BAI) and sponsored by Edward Dillon & Co, are running over three days of the show, adding a dash of mixology magic to CATEX’s busy schedule of events.

Taking place on Tuesday, 17 February, The National Hospitality Student Cocktail Challenge 2015 will see students from Institutes of Technology across Ireland put their skills to the test as they vie to become student champion. National Cocktail Championship 2015 will bring the country’s top bartenders together on Wednesday, 18 February, as they compete to win the right to represent Ireland at the World Cocktail Championship in Sofia, Bulgaria, in autumn 2015. This is an open championship.

In a new addition to the competition schedule, on Thursday, 19 February, the BAI and Edward Dillon & Co will launch an exciting new ‘no rules’ cocktail competition - details to be confirmed.

‘We are thrilled to be bringing three national cocktail competitions back to CATEX as part of the 50th Anniversary celebrations of the show next February,’ says Declan Byrne, BAI president and secretary of the International Bartenders Association. ‘The cocktail championships, sponsored by our friends in Edward Dillon & Co, are a great opportunity for Ireland’s best bartenders to showcase their skills to the hospitality industry and we are looking forward to another exciting event at the RDS in 2015.’

Getting hot in the kitchen will be the country’s most talented chefs who will engage in a series of competitions including the Contract Caterers Chef’s Challenge and the all-new Inter-College Competition.

Said Brendan O’Neill, Chairman of the judges, Chef Ireland 2015, “At CATEX Chef Ireland 2015 we are in search of the stars of the future who will be cooking and showing their skills and flare at the first all-Ireland Inter-College competition which is one of the highlights of the show. The event will showcase young chefs and service personnel doing their own thing in front of their peers and colleagues in the industry serving 10 full 4 course meals to perfection”.

Already over 120 key suppliers have booked their place at the 50th CATEX and show owners IFSA are confident that the event will sell out before Christmas.

Commenting on the uptake on stands to date IFSA Chairman Sean Martin says, “We have been overwhelmed with the stand bookings to date. Already over 75% of stand space has been allocated, many of the exhibitors being IFSA members, and many other who have new and exciting products to show, - This will be the largest CATEX many of us will have ever seen.

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Pictured at the launch of details of the Inter-College Competition at CATEX 2015 with Chef Ireland were: Brendan O'Neill, Chairman of the Judges, Chef Ireland 2015, Eoin McDonnell, the President of Chef Ireland, Garret Buckley, MD EventHaus, organisers of CATEX along with lecturers at Colaiste Ide, Lisa Bohan and Sinead Walsh.

Indeed we are excited to that this landmark year affords us the opportunity to shake things up by reinventing the menu of competitions and features to keep the excitement going.”

Demonstrating their enthusiasm to share their renewed growth and showcase new products and services at the industry’s preeminent platform, some of the biggest names in the business have claimed their space well in advance of the show next February.

CATEX is for every business relying on the foodservice sector and welcomes visitors from hotels; restaurants, cafes/snack bars/takeaways; bakeries; pubs/clubs/wine bars; franchise operators; contract caterers; forecourt caterers; instore caterers; leisure/sports centers; wholesalers; cash & carrys; wholesalers; architects/specifiers; interior designers; researchers; furnishing/furniture outlets; travel caterers; healthcare caterers; education caterers; public sector caterers and more.

The Irish Foodservice Suppliers Alliance (IFSA) was formed with the aim of establishing and maintaining a collective agreement of standards and objectives for the overall foodservice industry in Ireland. Enjoying the full support of the wellorganised existing foodservice representative bodies, the objective of IFSA is to promote, develop and enhance the position of all the foodservice suppliers in the industry as not just a lobby group, but as a group that can collectively drive the whole industry forward. www.catexexhibition.com For further information: Garret Buckley, Executive Director, IFSA Tel: 01-8460 020/01-8460 091 E: garret.buckley@ifsa.eu.com Press Inquiries: Elaine Roddy, Communications Director, Eventhaus Ltd Tel: 087-8272373 E: elaine.roddy@eventhaus.ie

COFFEE

Learn how Bewley’s can drive your profits from hot beverages at CATEX 2015 Visit the Bewley’s stand and meet the coffee experts

Ireland’s leading coffee company, Bewley’s, are delighted to announce their presence at CATEX, Ireland’s largest foodservice event, which takes place in the RDS from 17-19 February 2015.

Bewley’s has been roasting great quality coffees and blending award winning teas for over 170 years and their commitment to excellence has never wavered.

Established in 1840, Bewley’s is one of the largest coffee roasters in Ireland and the UK and is the Irish market leader in the provision of fresh roast and ground coffee and hot beverage solutions to cafés, restaurants and hotels across the island of Ireland. In addition to its operations in the UK and US, Bewley’s processes and supplies approximately 3,000 tonnes of roasted coffee and 800 tonnes of tea annually from its 110,000 sq. ft. coffee and tea manufacturing facility in Dublin.

Bewley’s has at all times been at the forefront of the coffee industry in Ireland.

Bewley’s were the first to import tea directly into Ireland and were the first company to introduce Fairtrade certified coffees to Irish consumers. Bewley’s also take great pride in having been the first coffee supplier to set up a dedicated training service for its Foodservice customers.

As the nation’s largest coffee & tea supplier, Bewley’s are currently on track to becoming the number one hot beverage solutions provider for the foodservice industry in Ireland and the UK, recognising that the success of their trade customers is a key driver for their own growth. Bewley’s provide all the essentials

to café operators; the highest quality coffee and tea backed up by superior equipment, excellent barista training, a reliable and responsive service department and awardwinning customer service.

“As market leaders and experts in our field, Bewley’s continue to deliver the complete beverage solution and quality coffee and tea offering to customers throughout Ireland. At the heart of our success is our unwavering commitment to quality, our people and our creative approach to meeting the needs of our customers. We want to continue to build on these strengths and we will be using Catex as a platform to showcase developments we have made regarding our hot beverage programmes for Foodservice operators and canvassing for their feedback,” commented Carol Geary, Bewley’s Foodservice Marketing Manager.

With over 40% market share across Foodservice channels, the Bewley’s training and sales team will be familiar to many visitors to Catex and Bewley’s are encouraging all visitors interested in hot beverages solutions to visit their stand.

Bewley’s will be demonstrating the very best in barista techniques from a dedicated barista bar as well as showcasing their new, premium loose leaf tea offer. The event will be a fantastic opportunity for foodservice operators to learn first-hand how Bewley’s work collaboratively with their customers to enhance all aspects of an operator’s hot beverage offer.

“Our objective - always - is to ensure that consumers will enjoy an outstanding cup of coffee across all of the out of home channels, which in turn drives loyalty towards an outlet. The key challenge in today’s market is to continue to offer a high quality product and good value to an increasingly cost conscious consumers.

With over 170 years of expertise in the tea and coffee industry, there is a genuine passion within Bewley’s to share our knowledge with our customer’s to drive profits within their operations. We genuinely pride ourselves on identifying opportunities for our customers to grow their businesses, recognising that each partner is unique and working with them to tailor a solution that is directly suitable for them,” added Geary.

Visit Bewley’s at stand F26 at CATEX and find out more about how your business can profit from working in partnership with Ireland’s leading hot beverage solutions provider.

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INTERVIEW

Creating powerful brand identities Des O’Mahony, CEO and co-founder of Bookassist, interviewed Driven by the rapid change in customer needs and expectations, technology is now a fundamental element of the tourism and hospitality industry. Hotels, restaurants, attractions and cities are marketed worldwide with dedicated, carefully considered websites creating powerful brand identities; product and service standards have risen due to the influence of social media and online reviews; and hotel rooms can now be booked in a matter of clicks from anywhere in the world.

Bookassist is a company at the forefront of this melding of hospitality and technology. Long recognised as a leader and innovator in the hospitality technology space, the company, founded in Dublin in 1999, provides partner hotels with a tailored integrated digital strategy encompassing digital marketing, web design, distribution management and award-winning booking engine technology.

Now in its sixteenth year, the company has recently celebrated the win of a World Travel Award for the third time running, and so Hotel & Restaurant Times met with CEO and Co-founder Des O’Mahony to talk about how the company’s ethos has driven and retained this level of success.

“ So how did it all start? With their background in physics, co-founder Robert Whittle and Des’ path into hospitality is described by Des as an ‘unusual twist’. In 1994 they began ‘playing around’ with what was then the ‘new’web technology, founding an online city guide brand, Softguides. And although Des says they found the idea “too early for the marketplace” they recognised a need to directly connect hotels with customers online, and the possibility to turn that need into a focused business product.

“We then focused purely on the hotel

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Photograph: Jason Clarke Photography

…at some point you realise you can’t expand any further in this market so we took the decision to look at growth potential in other markets.

industry as Bookassist,” Des says. “We had to build technology so we didn’t go to the market until 2000. The Schoolhouse in Dublin was our very first booking and we celebrate that birthday every year in the company with ‘Szebesta Day’ each August, which was the booker’s name. He doesn’t know what he started! We then spent the first five years reaching a very strong position in the Irish market-place, but at some point you realise you can’t expand any further in this market so we took the decision to look at growth potential in other markets. We worked closely with Enterprise Ireland to study those markets and the first market we went into was the Czech Republic. It was easier for us to get into some secondary markets using our knowledge from Ireland and build them quite quickly. We didn’t go to the UK back then because it would have taken a lot of resources to crack that market, but we’re doing it now because we have more resources and technology.”

The company has gone from strength to strength and now has 78 staff spread over two main offices in Madrid and Dublin - where all development, online

INTERVIEW marketing and technology operations take place - and five smaller offices in London, Paris, Rome, Prague and Vienna where staff look after local support and communication on the ground.

It is this support that Des cites as Bookassist greatest strength. “We’re close to the hotels in each market,” he tells us. “We believe this industry is fundamentally a service industry based on personal contact, and it’s not just a gimmick to say we seek to be a partner to the hotel, not just a supplier - and that requires us to be personal. We can be hard-hitting with hotels, saying you need to do this or that to succeed, and when they see we are saying it from a position of partnership and knowledge, they embrace that. Our retention rates are extremely high, particularly for our sector and that’s because of our customer service and because we show we are genuinely interested in the hotel’s business and not just in making shortterm gain for ourselves.”

No doubt this commitment to service has played a part in the company's third successive win as World's Leading Booking Engine Technology Provider. To win once, Des acknowledges, is an affirmation they’re doing something right, but to maintain the position for three years running is a tremendous reflection on what they are projecting into the market.

He says of the achievement: “It feels fantastic - lots of emotion goes with the win.

It’s very humbling. We’re a small brand in a list of bigger nominees but the size of the company is irrelevant if the impact you create is good enough. This is an award for the staff. If the industry is voting it’s because of the quality of interaction with our staff and an affirmation of our partnership approach. I didn’t go into this to just make money; I did it because it was something I liked and I like working with people who feel the same. We have to make sure everyone on board in Bookassist has the same attitude. We’re all a team and we interact without the obvious ‘hierarchy’.

That’s very important I think - that’s how you get an organisation to have a singular impact on the market and a singular reputation.” As a testament to that team ethos, Des explains he arrives with muffins for the staff from the wonderful Bretzel Bakery any Friday he’s in Dublin.

According to Des, the Irish market, in terms of the web, has always been more advanced than markets in Continental Europe in particular. This he says, is because of strong local talent - shown by large companies in the space such as Hostelworld - and also because as an English speaking country it’s more in-step with the US and UK.

However, Ireland’s strength is also its weakness. Far too many Irish hotels have websites just in English, an issue Des describes as “a huge missed opportunity”.

He says: “Our booking system will work in 27 languages but it’s the hotel’s business to describe the product in different languages. With Irish hotels, even big brands, the provision of multiple languages is staggeringly low. Your website is a digital reception desk - if a foreign guest comes to your reception in a hotel and you say sorry I don’t speak your language, that’s unacceptable service so why should it be different online? It’s important to bring digital platforms back to what they are - a projection of fundamental service.”

Des is adamant that training needs to match the pace of change in the industry if this is to happen.

“ Photograph: Jason Clarke Photography

It’s a fragile recovery still.

Keep the service level up, keep your reputation up and you’re in it for the long term.

He says: “Shannon and DIT for example have done a fantastic job in the last 10 years overhauling the curriculum to focus on the digital sphere. There has been such a rapid change in areas like digital and revenue management, and these need real skill and training. Career development needs to go up a level. The traditional approach is to learn on apprentice level on the ground, but I don’t think this works anymore. The market and technology, as well as guest expectations, are moving too quickly.”

Des also serves on Tourism Ireland’s Central Marketing Partnership Group“Tourism Ireland and Fáilte Ireland have done a fantastic job in projecting brand Ireland,” he acknowledges. “Like the Wild Atlantic Way - repackaging what was already there, the way it’s being pushed out - it’s fantastic. They’ve created a lean machine, pushing very strongly into social media and digital outreach. Increasingly again, it shows in Ireland we do digital quite well.”

He finishes: “I think the Irish market has legs but we have to be careful we don’t lose the run of ourselves and fall into the same trap we experienced just a small number of years ago. It’s a fragile recovery still. Keep the service level up, keep your reputation up and you’re in it for the long term. Push on rate or cost-cutting to improve your margin and you’re in for a short gig.”

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FÁILTE FOCUS

Visitor numbers at pre-recession levels

Michael Cawley, Chairman and Shaun Quinn, CEO, Fáilte Ireland

Fáilte Ireland targets sustained growth in tourism revenue, jobs and visitors for 2015 season In mid-December, Fáilte Ireland held its Annual Tourism Industry Review and, as the tourism sector faces into 2015 and following spectacular increases in 2014, it found that confidence and business sentiment within tourism is currently high.

Optimism about growth is being boosted by dramatically improving overseas markets, increased air access and recent ‘big ticket’ initiatives such as the Wild Atlantic Way. Speaking in Dublin, Fáilte Ireland Chairman Michael Cawley emphasised: “2014 has been a tremendous year for Irish tourism. All markets showed healthy growth and with increases in air access facilitating record numbers from the US and a return to increased visitors from Britain and continental Europe. The substantial increase in revenue from tourism has ensured that the sector has more than played its part in boosting economic recovery. The 5,000 extra tourism jobs created, together with the extra taxation revenue on spending by visitors, represents a major boost to the Irish economy.

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“For 2015 we expect Irish tourism to continue to benefit from further increases in air access, the substantial Capital investments made in initiatives such as the Wild Atlantic Way and the increased use of focused marketing both overseas and domestically. Fáilte Ireland is projecting an increase of 6% in overseas tourists in 2015 and I am confident that if we maintain competitiveness and continue to invest in tourism infrastructure, that the sector will generate record levels of revenue and create thousands more jobs next year.”

5,000 tourism jobs created this year and 8,000 more anticipated in 2015 During 2014, visitor numbers grew by an estimated 9% while foreign earnings are projected to be up 13%, an increase of approximately €400m, adding to the overall upbeat mood in the industry.

Business Growing employment numbers are reflected in the Sentiment at prevailing optimism and half of those businesses Fáilte Ireland works closely with (50%) increased employment peak levels this year and, looking at anticipated growth in tourism for the year ahead, 46% of these businesses are telling the tourism authority that they expect to take on more staff over the course of 2015.

On current trends, employment in the tourism sector could increase by another 8,000 jobs - exceeding 210,000.

Value for Money: Continuing Improvement Ireland’s value for money rating has now doubled since 2009 and nine out of ten holidaymakers are now expressing satisfaction - with six out of ten overseas holidaymakers rating value as good and an additional three out of ten rating it as fair.

FÁILTE FOCUS

Michael Cawley, Chairman Fáilte Ireland

2015 - The Year Ahead Expectations within the tourism sector for 2015 are very positive. After two years of strong growth, the industry enters this year with a belief that this trend will be sustained. Almost all accommodation providers expect the same or increased tourist volumes next year with four out of five of Visitor numbers at pre- these businesses citing the maintenance of the 9% VAT rate as a positive factor recession levels - on a affecting anticipated performance. par with the second Hotels are the most optimistic with best year ever more than eight out of ten expecting to increase their volume of business in 2015.

Within this calculation, there are high expectations for both the domestic and overseas markets, especially the North American market, where many (57%) hoteliers expect to see increased tourists in 2015 on top of two years of rising numbers. Maintenance of the 9% VAT is particularly seen as significant to competitiveness in the hotel sector where the vast majority (86%) of operators point to this as a likely positive factor for their performance in 2014.

With almost two thirds (63%) expecting increased volumes and one third (35%) anticipating similar levels of business, guesthouses are also expecting a good outturn in 2015 - particularly from North America.

Even the B&B sector, which was particularly affected by the downturn, is now much more upbeat with two thirds (66%) of operators expecting increased business in 2015 - continuing the turnaround in sentiment seen last year. This brighter outlook is underpinned by performance in overseas markets in 2014, especially Europe and US, where the authentic Irish offering of a Some €400m jump in B&B still holds a strong appeal.

Restaurants based in traditional tourism overseas earnings in regions experienced a significant increase in 2014 is the biggest overseas customers during 2014 following a increase in a decade number of difficult years. Now, four out of five restaurants are expecting growth in volumes during 2015. Not surprisingly, the retention of the 9% VAT rate is also cited as crucial by the restaurant sector as it helps restaurants to offer better value at a time when many customers have lower disposable income. Eight out of ten (81%) restaurateurs say that the VAT rate will be a positive factor for 2015.

Tourism developments are also colouring the outlook for 2015. Two in five businesses nationally are very optimistic about the anticipated benefits that the Wild Atlantic Way will bring as it is further developed and promoted at home and abroad. It is no surprise to find that this is particularly true in western regions, where this proportion rises to over 60%.

Looking at the bottom line, 82% of those businesses who regularly work with Fáilte Ireland expect to increase their earnings from overseas tourists next year. Plus, some 78% expect to see improved profitability.

The CEO of Fáilte Ireland Shaun Quinn, anticipating the year ahead, said: “Next year we have some tantalising prizes to aim for.

Whether its visitors, revenue or jobs, tourism looks set to deliver in 2015, a record breaking year. Fáilte Ireland will support these ambitious targets by developing compelling reasons to visit Ireland and will work closely with tourism businesses throughout the country to sell smarter and market more effectively.”

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INTERVIEW

Passion and enthusiasm Hotel & Restaurant Times talks to Minister Michael Ring, T.D.

Minister Ring is, as they say, a man about town in the tourism sphere. His energy and enthusiasm are something to behold, but what lies behind this Duracell of a man.

Hotel & Restaurant Times caught up with him recently to find out why he seems so driven and committed to the sector.

On the 10th of March 2011 Michael Ring was appointed as Minister of State for Tourism and Sport and he says the industry is in a very different place now to when he took over the office three and a half years ago. “When I came in the hotel sector were really worried about their business, they didn’t see a future in tourism and things looked very frightening, but they put their heads down and worked hard and now we’re seeing growth.”

Minister Ring asserts two key initiatives kick-started a process of growth in the industry; the government lowering the VAT rate from 13.5% to 9% and The Gathering.

“I travelled to 12 cities across Britain, Scotland and the USA. We talked to a lot of Irish groups in those cities and the common denominator was the same – the cost base here was too high, people weren’t getting value for their money when they came here.”

The authenticity of The Gathering was questioned among some in the industry but the Minister explains that in fact what was needed was someone to lead the campaign.

“Jim Miley was an inspired choice, he

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brought a cohesive approach. We needed all the local authorities on board so we asked them all to do two things; debate The Gathering at council level and also that every council would put a budget aside for the coming year.

“Then Paul Bates and myself went to the managers association in Dublin and asked them to put a special director of services in place to deal with the gathering for 1 year. 99% of the local authorities bought into it and could see the benefit. This meant every corner of the country was involved and that’s what we needed. But then, the cost base was right when people did come. People saw a different Ireland, they got value for money and Irish people were prepared to talk to visitors again, they gave them new deals, and tourists went We talked to a lot of Irish away feeling Ireland is a good place to groups in those cities come again.”

Michael Ring’s own career history is and the common deeply rooted in community. He was denominator was the born in Fr. Angelus Park in Westport in same – the cost base 1953, a former auctioneer he stood for here was too high, election to Dáil Éireann in 1992 but was people weren’t getting unsuccessful. He was however elected to the Dail at a by-election in June 1994 value for their money for the Mayo West constituency. Michael when they came here.

Ring was a member of Mayo County Council from 1999 - 2004. He has served on the Fine Gael front bench as a spokesperson on Social and Family Affairs from 2002 to 2004 and Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs from 2007 to 2010.

Anyone who has been at the World Travel Market has experienced Minister Ring’s enthusiasm for the industry first hand, but where does he think this passion comes from? “It comes from my experience on ground in Westport. I was elected to the council in ‘79 and in the 80’s we had three general elections in a row. In Westport at the time the issues were dereliction of the town and unemployment and at council level we said we are going to have to do something about these issues ourselves, the government weren’t going to. So we decided to focus on Tourism.

“They were very difficult times but Fáilte Ireland said to us, if you get some funding together we’ll match it. We got a Tidy Towns committee together; we worked on

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INTERVIEW

getting rid of plastic signs around the town and people started to see what we were trying to do. I remember the tourism committee going around the town collecting money from businesses, we got £20,000 and Fáilte Ireland nearly died because then they had to match it! We started our own marketing campaign then and that’s when the tourism sector started to take off there.”

According to Minister Ring this is the approach that needs to act as the foundation for growth in the tourism sector now. “In every county now they have an enterprise including a tourism section in their council and that is going to work, there’ll be funding there and they will work with the industry.”

However, it has been argued that any growth that has taken place so far has centred in Dublin, how does the Minister respond to this? “I would’ve agreed with this up to this year but not now. Now, in every place I’ve been to this year, they tell me they have had a good tourist season so it is beginning to spread out slowly. It ripples but I think people see hope now.”

Recent figures support the growth the Minister refers to. In the first ten months of this year there were over 6.5million visits to Ireland, an increase of 8.8% compared to the same period in 2013. Visits from mainland Europe were up by 6.9% for January to October 2014 (2,306,9000 visits) and North America registered an increase of 14.5% for the same period (1,185,800 visits).

Visits from Great Britain increased by 8% for January to October 2014 (2,678,000 visits) and the rest of the world, comprising long-haul and developing markets brought an increase of 9.6% for the same period (406,400 visits). By the end of this year and estimated 7.3 million people will have visited Ireland in 2014 representing an 8.8% increase compared to 2013.

The figures for 2015 are being calculated currently and are estimating 7.74 million visitors to Ireland next year, this would surpass the previous record year in 2007. This would represent a 6% increase over 2014 figures and would deliver almost 4 billion to the Irish economy.

But are these figures being translated into jobs? “For every 35 people that come into the country one job is created. I see that in every corner of the country now. We have nearly 30,000 new jobs in the tourism sector this year and the big thing now is

to have people trained and ready to take up these jobs. We must have people trained properly in the hospitality sector.

“One thing we must change in this country is our attitude to how important people who work in the hospitality sector are. In the USA and Spain for example the waiter is seen as an important position and it is. If I wasn’t in politics I’d love to be a hotel manager. I would love that job! Tourism is going to be one of the big growth areas in this country and an area that’s employing people. We need to show more respect to this sector. That needs to come from the education sector and from us all.”

Some of the most successful government initiatives in the sector in recent include the retention of the 9% VAT rate, the reduction of air travel tax to 0%, the Wild Atlantic Way and promotion of the new British-Irish Visa scheme in China and India. But what other initiatives would Minister Ring like to see happening on the Island? “We need a product for every corner of the country, a focused approach as against a blanket approach.

“ We have nearly 30,000 new jobs in the tourism sector this year and the big thing now is to have people trained and ready to take up these jobs.

We must have people trained properly in the hospitality sector.

“We have anconcept in development for the South-East, we are looking at a new initiative in Dublin to get people coming in the off season and developing Dublin as a destination for short-term trips. We also plan to further develop the Wild Atlantic Way and promoted it Worldwide, particularly in the USA.We also need to stimulate and support other tourism industries in the country.”

However, with some optimism beginning to creep into the industry again, the Minister has one word of caution. “The issue of pricing. We need to make sure we don’t over inflate our pricing, particularly in Dublin. We need to stay competitive and keep our cost base down.”

Minister Ring agrees further support and assistance from his colleagues in government is needed to tackle issues such as the prevalence of drug mi-use in Dublin City Centre and the struggle businesses in the industry are having in relation to getting support from banks. However is outlook for the industry remains positive. “I’d love to see another 20,000 people employed in the industry by the end of next year. I’d love to see a record number of people coming into the country and I’d love the confidence that’s emerging in the industry to continue.”

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TOURISM

Tourism Ireland sets its sights on record year for Irish tourism in 2015 the best return on investment, in terms of holiday visitors and revenue i.e. Britain, North America and Mainland Europe. Ireland’s ‘best prospect’ visitors will be targeted more closely - with distinctive holiday experiences, events and special offers tailored to their interests and designed to trigger their ‘must go now’ impulses. Emerging markets of high potential will also be targeted, particularly China and India, where Tourism Ireland will highlight the new British-Irish Visa Scheme.

Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland, with Tourism Minister Paschal Donohoe, at the launch of Tourism Ireland’s marketing plans for 2015.

Tourism Ireland launched details of its marketing plans to promote Ireland overseas in 2015 and beyond, at an event attended by Tourism Minister Paschal Donohoe and tourism industry leaders from around the country. The organisation aims to build on this year’s growth in overseas tourism and to welcome 7.74 million visitors to Ireland in 2015 - surpassing the previous record year of 2007. This figure will represent growth of +6% over 2014 and deliver almost €4 billion to the Irish economy next year. In the longer-term, the aim is to welcome some 10 million visitors to Ireland in 2025, contributing €5 billion to the economy and helping to sustain about 250,000 jobs.

Building on this year’s success and sustaining growth into the future is at the heart of Tourism Ireland’s strategy in 2015. The plans will see Tourism Ireland prioritise those markets that offer

Carol Hinch, Ballynahinch Castle; Leonie Kelly, Tourism Ireland; and Siobhán Ryan Davern, Cliff Townhouse.

Important factors working in our favour for 2015 include new access developments; as well as consumer confidence, which is returning in our key source markets. The Ireland ‘brand’ or image abroad is strong; continued product investment enhances our offering overseas - particularly investment in the Wild Atlantic Way. Exchanges rates for sterling and the dollar are favourable; and the lower price of oil will help make air and sea routes more sustainable.

President Higgins meets leading Chinese travel professionals in Shanghai

Ireland ‘meets’ London’s West End

Suzanne Meade, Meet in Galway; Joanne Perry, Aer Lingus; Chetan Shah, The Black Tomato Agency (incentive travel specialists); Joyce McElroy and Sandra Fahy, both Tourism Ireland, at Tourism Ireland’s business tourism workshop in London.

President Higgins with Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland, in Shanghai during the State Visit to China.

President Michael D Higgins addressed leading Chinese travel trade, media and airline representatives in Shanghai, at an event organised by Tourism Ireland as part of the recent State Visit to China. He spoke of the historic and cultural links between Ireland and China and their importance in underpinning future tourism potential. The event was an ideal opportunity for Tourism Ireland to highlight the new British-Irish Visa Scheme to the influential Chinese guests in attendance. The new scheme will enable visitors from China to travel freely between Ireland and the United Kingdom using the same travel documents i.e. using either an Irish or UK visa. This is a significant step, as it will mean Chinese visitors will be able - for the first time - to visit both Ireland and the UK on a single visa of either country.

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Thirty-six Irish tourism enterprises travelled to London recently, to take part in a B2B workshop and networking event, organised by Tourism Ireland to grow business tourism to Ireland in 2015 and beyond. At the event, they met, and did business with, senior representatives and decision-makers from 46 top British conference, events and meetings organisers. Pictured are (l-r) Suzanne Meade, Meet in Galway; Joanne Perry, Aer Lingus; Chetan Shah, The Black Tomato Agency (incentive travel specialists); Joyce McElroy and Sandra Fahy, both Tourism Ireland.

TOURISM

‘On Location’ with Channel 4’s Phil Spencer and Classic FM to promote Ireland for late season travel Tourism Minister Paschal Donohoe launched an end-of-year promotional campaign in Britain, aiming to boost late season travel to Ireland.

The campaign - which reached more than seven million Classic FM ‘culturally curious’ listeners - saw Tourism Ireland team up once again with popular TV personality Phil Spencer and Classic FM, Britain’s most popular classical radio station. As well as on-air mentions by Phil Spencer and other Classic FM presenters - endorsing Ireland and what a great place it is for a short break or holiday - online videos starring Phil ran on classicfm.com over a six-week period. Listeners were encouraged to visit the Classic FM website, to view the films and to also be in with a chance to win a trip to Ireland.

Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland; Tourism Minister Paschal Donohoe; TV personality Phil Spencer; and Denis O’Brien, head concierge at the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin.

Inaugural Irish Tourism Industry Awards - Get Your Entries In!

Sales blitz in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle

The Irish Tourism Industry Awards were launched in Dublin Castle by Minister of State for Tourism and Sport, Michael Ring. Also pictured are Niall Gibbons, Tourism Ireland; Eamonn McKeon, ITIC; and Alex Connolly, Fáilte Ireland.

The delegation of Irish and American tourism enterprises taking part in Tourism Ireland’s ‘Jump into Ireland’ (JITI) event in San Francisco.

The Irish Tourism Industry Awards were launched in Dublin Castle

by Minister of State for Tourism and Sport, Michael Ring.

The new Irish Tourism Industry Awards is the first national scheme to identify and celebrate leading lights within the wider tourism industry, at home and overseas, who are making a difference, setting an example and actively contributing to recent tourism growth.

Full details of the awards and how to apply are available at irishtourismindustryawards.ie. So, get your entries in!

Tourism Ireland, together with a delegation of 20 tourism companies, recently undertook a three-city trade and media blitz in the United States. The last of the 2014 ‘Jump into Ireland’ (JITI) events took in the key cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle. With the Aer Lingus service between San Francisco and Dublin due to become a daily service next summer (currently five flights weekly), it was an ideal opportunity to target influential travel agents and tour operators on the west coast of the US, kickstarting the promotional effort for 2015 in this important tourism market.

On a mission to boost tourism from down under Tourism Ireland’s final overseas trade mission of 2014 went to New Zealand and Australia, taking in the cities of Auckland, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. Twelve Irish tourism businesses including hotels, visitor attractions, activity providers and destination management companies - took part in the eight-day sales blitz. They met hundreds of influential travel agents, tour operators and journalists, during specially tailored business-tobusiness workshop sessions and networking events.

Tourism companies from the island of Ireland with Jim Paul (second left) and Diane Butler (fifth right), both Tourism Ireland, in Sydney.

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ONLINE MARKETING

The supplier/vendor relationship between hotels and online travel agents Dr. Des O’Mahony I recently gave a keynote presentation at the Buy Tourism Online (BTO) 2014 conference in Florence on the controversial theme of “What Hotels Hate About OTA Practices”, OTAs being Online Travel Agents such as Expedia, Hotels.com, Booking.com and other such travel brands.

The provocative title was not chosen by me, but I was happy to do the research among our hotelier clients across Europe and give my views. My presentation was followed by one from Booking.com and the combination of the presentations turned into quite a debate among attendees and on social media channels related to the conference, indicating the depth of feeling among hoteliers on the OTA topic.

The relationship between hotels and OTAs is often quite fractious. But that is not to say that hotels universally hate OTAs. Some hotels that I discussed the topic with are quite happy with their OTAs, though the “happy” hotels tend to fall into one of two categories - those who really understand how the OTA opportunity can be used and therefore remain in control of their online distribution while favouring their direct-towebsite channel, and those who are happy with the large volume of business OTAs bring them but are unaware of the real risk they are taking in ceding too much power over their distribution strategy to the OTAs. The former is where hotels need to be, and the latter group is thankfully small. But the majority of hotels in my experience are not in the “happy” category and had negative feelings about their OTA partnership experience.

The hotel as supplier The reality is that OTAs do a very, very good job at shifting rooms. They deliver large quantities of business to hotels, and of course they charge for that service, considerably. They are a critical and necessary part of what it means to be in the hotel business today. So where does the negativity stem from?

There is a high resentment among hotels about their relationship with OTAs because, in my view, hotels continue to believe that the relationship is actually a “partnership”.

It’s not a partnership at all, in the sense of mutual concern for each others’ wellbeing.

It is a straightforward supplier-vendor

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relationship, just like the relationship between the large supermarket multiples and their food suppliers. And like all suppliers in a supplier-vendor relationship, you regularly feel the pressure. Just ask farmers for their view on most supermarket multiples.

Like the multiples, the OTAs’ focus is the customer, not the hotel. They have pushed hotels relentlessly for lower and lower pricing, and more and more availability supply, because they want to provide good deals for the customer. They sign more and more hotels of all shapes and sizes so that they can provide more choice for the customer. They operate ever-growing private loyalty programmes with even steeper discounts on hotels so that they can be more and more relevant to the customer. In this approach, the OTA is extremely successful and delivers huge booking volumes for the hotel sector. But in this relationship, the hotel is simply a commodity on a list, and if your hotel does not fit the bill, the OTA and the customer simply move on to the next supplier. Commodity suppliers are usually quite expendable.

The pain of commoditisation The OTA relationship issues experienced by hotels, in my discussions with them, stem directly from the reality of the classic supplier-vendor model, and many hotels’ failure to appreciate exactly what that kind of relationship is about: • Hotels feel compelled to lower prices and to maintain rate parity so that they cannot sell at better rates on their own websites, effectively ceding control of their entire pricing strategy if they are not strong enough to maintain their own supplyto-customer sales channels as a buffer.

• Hotels feel they experience coercive or restrictive behaviour whereby failure to comply with “good enough” pricing or availability can result in their property being less favoured in list positions online and therefore result in loss of bookings that they have become increasingly reliant on.

• Hotels feel they have less control of their online reputation, with some OTAs not allowing them to respond to customer comments and reviews online.

• Hotels have less access to OTA customer data than they would like, leading to less ownership of the customer relationship and less chance for successful remarketing.

• By giving OTAs rates and availability, hotels effectively allow OTAs to compete with them in online advertising, not only complicating the user choice and reducing their own visibility, but making their own advertising far more expensive in the payper-click auction model.

• Hotels see a huge dilution of the their own proprietary brand. Their brand presence and identity is massively compromised. They appear in a standard list with little competitive differentiation afforded. They invest so much in their physical brand and yet there is little evidence of this when the hotel is squeezed in a long list of hotels.

• Hotels find their own brand or name is often used in advertising but may result in a competitor hotel being booked by the online customer, since the list approach of OTAs ensures each advert-generated website visit displays multiple choices to book while the hotel’s advert-generated website visit has just one chance.

Remedies Hotels’ negative emotion comes from over-reliance and a feeling of frustration and helplessness about what to do to redress the balance. As mentioned above, many of those hotels that are happy with OTAs are those hotels who truly understand and control the relationship and maintain a proper balance across their distribution spectrum. In this case, the additional fees paid to OTAs are worth it, since they deliver only that custom which the hotel would otherwise not easily have got. But where OTAs are delivering the easy guest, (the low-hanging fruit the hotel should

ONLINE MARKETING

Hotels are commoditized in the supplier-vendor relationship by OTAs so that the choice is easier for the customer to make and the chance for conversion is higher. (Photo: iStockphoto).

easily be able to get themselves), the fees being paid are utterly wasted by the hotel, and should instead be invested in their own brand.

Solutions exist – but they require work • It is critical for hotels to directly reach customers and not allow all their customers to come via OTAs. To do this, hotels must invest in online presence, high quality websites, online advertising, and optimise their efforts by continually analysing their performance. The return through lower acquisition costs will pay for the investment once you get the effort off the ground.

• Hotels must target those customers who come via OTAs and ensure they gather all data from them at reception so that they can proactively market future offers and services to them to try to turn them to the direct channel. Not doing so is a major lost opportunity.

• Hotels must focus on showing true value and high quality service online and adopt best practices for websites and mobile technology, getting as far away from brochure-ware as possible.

• Hotels should consider clearly visible ways of showing OTA customers on the premises that direct customers get more, for example listing services in the hotel as included for direct guests but at an additional charge for OTA guests.

• Hotels must very carefully manage inventory. Allocating hard-to-shift rooms or distressed inventory to OTAs is ideal, but giving all inventory to distribution, for example via channel manager tools that just put 100% of everything online without a clear strategy, is a very dangerous practice.

Time to think collectively?

The real reason OTAs win, apart from the great online service and high visibility brands they bring, is that hotels act independently of one another and lack any real collective bargaining power as supplier. It’s a simple divide and conquer. It’s interesting that even those hotels that use OTAs wisely still largely focus on their own backyard only instead of thinking more broadly for the good of the industry, and maybe this needs to change: • We know hotels should encourage their guests to book direct, but what they should be doing is encouraging their guests to always book any hotel direct, not just theirs. If all hotels did this, direct business would grow and all hotels would benefit by reciprocation.

• A fast-growing percentage of all OTA business is now coming from their branded

loyalty schemes. Yet hotels and hotel chains all operate their own independent loyalty schemes with no chance for pooling of points or transfer, despite the fact that customer move around between hotels and hotel chains all the time. If all hotels could somehow link together to a use common loyalty scheme, then customers again would see the benefit of booking direct at any hotel, not just some particular brand.

If all hotels did this, all would benefit by reciprocation.

• And another possible move by hotels is to promote each other in a non-competitive way when sending newsletters or offers.

Partner with hotels in other parts of the city, or other towns, and include offers to a hotel in Cork when promoting your Galway hotel for example. After all, this is why OTA newsletters are so successful - choice. If hotels could do this in a structured way, the choice that the online customer prefers would be coming from the hotels themselves and not the OTAs. If all hotels did this, all would benefit by reciprocation.

How this collective behaviour could be achieved is another matter entirely, but worth thinking about in a modern, connected consumer-oriented world where the customer is king (or queen).

Dr Des O’Mahony is CEO and Founder at Bookassist (http://www.bookassist.com), the multi-award-winning technology and digital strategy partner for hotels worldwide.

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FÁILTE IRELAND NEWS

Westport and Kinsale – Top Tourism Towns for 2014 There were shouts of joy and celebrations at the Fáilte Ireland Tourism Town awards ceremony which was held in the Clontarf Castle Hotel, Dublin with the announcement of Westport and Kinsale crowned the 2014 Best Large Tourism Town and Best Small Tourism Town respectively.

The Mayo hotspot and Cork fishing village were chosen from a shortlist of ten top tourism towns, with the remaining towns all receiving certificates of merit Ardmore, Waterford; Carrick on Shannon, Leitrim; Cobh, Cork; Glengarriff, Cork; Kilkenny, Kilkenny; Killarney, Kerry; Lismore, Waterford and Portmagee, Kerry.

The Tourism Towns Award was designed

by Fáilte Ireland to promote those Irish towns and villages which are working hardest to enhance their appeal to tourists visiting their local area. As the overall winners, Westport and Kinsale received its winning certificate along with a €5,000 grant towards further developing itself as a tourism destination.

Minister of State for Tourism & Sport Michael Ring attended the Awards ceremony said: “Congratulations to Westport and Kinsale on what is a great achievement and worthy recognition for all that they do for tourism in Ireland. These awards are all about honouring the towns that put tourism at the centre of what they do. This is particularly evident with our winners with both towns clearly embracing tourism and seizing the opportunities that it brings.”

Aside from the two top winners, a panel of independent assessors, as well as a team of ‘secret shoppers’ visited each town to measure their tourism performance and the level of welcome to visitors.

Congratulating all the towns involved, Paul Keeley from Fáilte Ireland said: “If The Gathering taught us one thing, it was that those towns and parishes with the greatest grass roots engagement with tourism thrive the most. The objective of our Tourism Towns Awards is to encourage and recognise this type of community-wide commitment where it exists and share their achievements with other towns. A true ‘Tourism Town’ isn’t necessarily a town that gains the most from tourism but rather a town that gives the most. In that respect, Kinsale and Westport are worthy winners this year.”

With regard to the overall winners, the judges’ first impressions of Westport were that the town was something special,

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Pictured at the Fáilte Ireland Tourism Town Awards are Charles Henderson, Best Small Tourism Town, Kinsale; Fiona Buckley, Fáilte Ireland; Minister Michael Ring; and Dermott Langan, Best Large Tourism Town, Westport.

accepting the award on behalf of Westport, Councillor Michael Holmes said - “Over the years the tourism product has been greatly expanded, now competing with leading tourist destinations worldwide. Westport offers a very varied palate of visitor attractions and activities, coupled with amazing local foods in a setting of spectacular scenery. The Tourism Towns initiative, gives Westport renewed focus to ensure that our standards are kept high and that the people value the visitor’s contribution.”

Westport

For Kinsale, the judges noted how there is a great feeling of having arrived when you come into the town and a real desire to get out and start exploring. Charles Henderson, Chairperson, Kinsale Tidy Towns, accepted the award and commented - “Three words sum up Kinsale - Location, Location, Location! A picturesque fishing village nestled between hills and harbour, encompassing a mix of medieval buildings and a maze of narrow streets, seamlessly incorporating a multitude of historical tourist attractions and gourmet restaurants. This award will give a great boost to all our efforts in the town.”

Kinsale Bay

FÁILTE IRELAND NEWS

Fáilte Ireland funding for key festivals and Wild Atlantic Way project

Funding of nearly €2million has been approved by Fáilte Ireland under the National Festivals and Events Programme with 16 key national festivals and events with significant international appeal - to take place in 2015.

Shaun Quinn, CEO of Fáilte Ireland stressed the importance of festivals for Ireland and the tourism sector: “Ultimately, the success of a tourism destination depends on the experience of the visitor - the menu of things to see, do and embrace which every traveller seeks out. For Ireland, festivals are an important part of the mix which makes us an enjoyable place to visit and these events provide the backbone to the tourism calendar next year and add to our ability to grow overseas visitors and revenue.”

As well as attracting visitors, festivals are important in terms of generating employment and community engagement. Fáilte Ireland research has previously indicated that there are almost 11,000 people in paid employment in festivals with almost 50,000 more people around Ireland engaged with festivals in Ireland on a voluntary basis.

The approved festivals being funded include: • St Patrick’s Festival - €1m • Galway Arts Festival - €200k • Dublin Horse Show - €150k • Wexford Festival Opera - €100k • FleadhCheoil 2015 Sligo - €90k • Kilkenny Arts Festival - €70k • Cork International Choral Festival - €45k • Cat Laughs Comedy Festival - €40k • Cork MidSummer Festival - €25k • TemplebarTradfest - €45k • West Cork Chamber Music Festival - €40k • Sea Sessions - €40k • Rory Gallagher Festival - €40k • Bike Fest - €30k • Writers Week - €20k • Cuirt - €10k Meanwhile, funding of just under €1million for the development of an improved visitor experience at Derrygimlagh, Connemara, Co, Galway, one of the key 15 Signature Discovery Points along the route of the Wild Atlantic Way, has been announced.

The money, allocated from Fáilte Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way capital programme, will significantly enhance the site which was the setting for two outstanding technological achievements of the 20th century: the Marconi Wireless Station, the world’s first commercial transatlantic wireless station in 1907; and twelve years later (in 1919) when Alcock and Brown landed on the site marking the first nonstop, trans-Atlantic flight.

The proposed improvements to the Derrygimlagh Discovery Point include a purpose built car and coach park facility with a significant sculpture to celebrate the world’s first transatlantic flight. Other developments include a looped walk on existing bog road with six key stops providing opportunities for visitors to engage

first hand with the stories of the site including the unique landscape and flora and fauna.

Funding will also be used to create interpretive elements proposed including informative steel and glass text display units highlighting unique aspects at each stop point, photographic displays and a selection of interactive sound devices (including crystal radios) to create a ‘hands-on’ visitor experience.

Fáilte Ireland’s Head of the Wild Atlantic Way, Fiona Monaghan emphasised: “This project will put in place another significant piece of our Wild Atlantic Way jigsaw. The story in Derrygimlagh, if brought alive, has the potential to act as a strong magnet for visitors to come to Connemara and even extend the length of the tourism season in this area. As Alcock and Brown did over a century ago, we hope that with today’s investment and the on-going evolution of the Wild Atlantic Way, many other travellers will choose to land here in years to come.”

Marconi monument, Derrigimlagh

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FUND PURCHASES

iNUA hospitality fund reports strong profit growth in first year of operations Series 1 acquisitions of the €20m iNua Hospitality fund records double-digit profit growth as hotel sector recovers There is further recovery expected in the hotel sector in 2015, according to specialist hospitality investment vehicle, iNua Hospitality. The organisation has already completed two acquisitions in its first fund of €20M, purchasing the Radisson BLU Hotel and Spa in Little Island, Cork, in November 2013 and the Radisson BLU Hotel and Spa, Limerick, in June 2014.

Reflecting on the performance of these properties, iNua Hospitality is reporting strong double-digit profit growth in the first year of operations. iNua Hospitality is led by expert financier Noel Creedon, who looks back at the performance of the hotel industry in 2014: “With significant growth in profitability from two or three years ago, there has been a solid recovery in values experienced across the board in 2014. Ireland has certainly benefitted from a strong domestic economic recovery, while a return of corporate and meetings demand has resulted in significant RevPAR growth (widely considered the most important performance metric in the hotel industry for investors). The strong upturn in ADR (Average Daily Rate) is very promising albeit a return to pre-crisis profitability levels is yet to be seen.

“Having improved operating fundamentals in both our hotels in 2014, our forecast for Q1 2015 is looking promising and we are hopeful of a continuing growth story for iNua Hospitality investors. Booking pace is strong in both of our hotels, momentum is good and economic activity is improving. These factors, coupled with no new supply coming on stream, should drive further growth going forward.”

While hotel sales bottomed out in 2009 with only two sales recorded, there has been a significant up lift in activity since 2012, which continued into 2013 with 35 hotel sales completed at an estimated value of over €200 million (Source: Savills Report, specifically commissioned for iNua Hospitality, September 2014). While there is still some way to go to regain the ground lost during the economic downturn, particularly outside of Dublin, iNua Hospitality is already looking to raise €10/15 million in Q1 2015 to acquire further hotels in Ireland.

With an obvious two-speed recovery at play between Dublin and the rest of Ireland, future projections indicate that there are unlikely to be any new hotel developments outside of the capital. There will be a need,

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however, to upgrade existing hotels in key regional locations such as Cork, Limerick and Galway. iNua Hospitality is currently undertaking a multi-million euro upgrade at its hotel in Limerick.

Results of initiatives such as The Gathering have contributed positively to driving visitor numbers upwards, which is a key factor in the growth of the hotel sector.

Further investment in regional tourism infrastructure - such as The Wild Atlantic Way - is also likely to assist in the regional recovery. This with improved economic conditions, increased visitor numbers and the retention of 9% Vat, will ensure continued growth in the hotel sector. iNua Hospitality brings two key innovations to the market 1. The ability to invest capital expenditure in assets to greatly improve the trading prospects of some hotels, which have typically been starved of investment as trading deteriorates over a period of time.

2. Uniquely for iNua Hospitality, no other Irish company currently operates this way. iNua Hospitality is also researching opportunities in the European market. “We know there is significant appetite for hotels in Europe,” Creedon explains, “and whilst economic growth has remained significantly slower across Europe, any improvement in the economic backdrop still has the potential to rejuvenate the European hotel sector and encourage further investment in 2015. International private equity buyers have taken advantage of low interest rates and a strong upturn in sentiment. However, despite both a good number of portfolios and single assets having completed, we believe there are still opportunities to be had.”

This appetite is not without its risks, Creedon advises: “A lack of economic growth across the Eurozone along with global geopolitical issues and challenges are all concerns. That said, we are likely to see yield compression as a lack of new product and high demand will continue to underpin investment appetite.”

Key highlights for iNua Hospitality in 2014 In January 2014, iNua Hospitality made its first acquisition, purchasing the Radisson BLU Hotel and Spa in Little Island, Cork. With a guide price of €8 million following an original valuation of €37 million in 2005, this sale represented excellent investor value while importantly securing the future of the Cork hotel and its 150strong staff. The hotel is reporting a RevPAR increase of over 14 per cent for 2014.

In June, iNua Hospitality bought the Radisson BLU Hotel and Spa on Limerick’s Ennis Road for €3.5million. Early reports show that the hotel performed in line with forecasts for the critical summer months since acquisition in June. The hotel is reporting a four per cent year-to-date RevPAR increase with a significant further increase expected following an investment in the refurbishment of the hotel, due for completion by March 2015. Among the enhancements to the property are renovation of the 154 guestrooms rooms, a rejuvenated Bridal Suite, redecorated meeting rooms, a revamping of the Porter’s Restaurant and a significant uplift to the ballroom, lounge and lobby areas.

The combined purchase price of €15m for the two hotels represented a 75% discount of the original development cost.

TOURISM IRELAND 2014

“We are particularly pleased with the performance from the United States” Niall Gibbons, CEO of all-Ireland tourist body Tourism Ireland, reflects on the year gone by and looks to a healthy future in 2015

Minister Dpnohoe and Tourism Ireland CEO, Niall Gibbons

With 2014 behind us, we can enjoy a positive retrospect on the year just gone. It has no doubt been another strong year for overseas tourism with about 7.3 million visitors (+8.8% growth over 2013) contributing more than €3.6 billion in revenue to the economy.

Reflecting on the year Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland, said: “Growth has been recorded from all our market areas and 2014 will be the best year ever for visitor numbers from North America, Germany, France and Spain, as well as from our long-haul markets including Australia and New Zealand.

“We are particularly pleased with the performance from the United States,” he continued. “By the end of 2014 we will have welcomed more than one million American visitors, spending US$1 billion. And the all-important British market, the largest market for Irish tourism, has also seen growth in visitor numbers in 2014, which is really encouraging. The introduction of the British-Irish Visa Scheme during the year was additional good news, making it easier than ever before for visitors from emerging tourism markets like China and India to visit Ireland in 2015.”

Throughout the year, Tourism Ireland undertook a packed calendar of promotional activity around the world in 2014, with these efforts a major contributing factor to international visitors choosing Ireland as their holiday destination.

The major focus of activity was no doubt Ireland’s first long-distance touring route, the Wild Atlantic Way - which has enjoyed a hugely positive reception around the world. Other major themes included Tourism Ireland’s biggest ever Global Greening initiative for St Patrick’s Day; Limerick City of Culture; the ‘Grande Partenza’ of the Giro d’Italia; a campaign teaming up with Game of Thrones to promote Northern Ireland; the #LoveDublin and #PictureBelfast social media campaign; the Croke Park Classic American football game; a promotional blitz to boost autumn travel to Ireland; and teaming with Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield showcase some of our top visitor experiences. With these creative campaigns, thousands of opportunities were created for potential visitors around the world to read, hear or watch positive messages about the island of Ireland and Tourism Ireland estimates that this exposure is worth an estimated €280 million in equivalent advertising value.

As well as this, Tourism Ireland’s own dedicated marketing channels are winning online. Tourism Ireland is the fourth most popular tourism board in the world on

Facebook with about 2.65 million fans, number three on Twitter and number two on YouTube. Tourism Ireland’s global marketing website, ireland.com, also scooped three awards at the W_ Awards in New York, which recognise creative excellence on the web and by the end of 2014 the website will have attracted about 13.6 million visitors.

Other overseas initiatives by Tourism Ireland in 2014 included the ‘Jump into Ireland’ U.S sales blitz; a sales mission to Australia and New Zealand; a new strategy unveiled to boost tourism from France and Germany; a sales mission to China, targeting top travel agents and tour operators in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou; and the new British-Irish Visa Scheme launched to boost visitor numbers from emerging tourism markets.

Tourism Ireland also recognise increased air access as another contributing factor to the volume of overseas visitors in 2014, with new routes introduced by a range of carriers. Summer 2014 saw a +9% increase in the number of airline seats between the US and Ireland for JuneAugust making it easier and more affordable than ever for Americans to get to Ireland and the significant (almost +70%) increase in airlines seats between Canada and Ireland also presented a new opportunity to position Ireland as a yearround destination for Canadian travellers.

Keeping the momentum going, at the beginning of this month, Tourism Ireland launched its marketing plans to promote Ireland in 2015 and beyond, with ambitious targets to welcome a record 7.74 million visitors to Ireland next year. In the longerterm, the aim is to welcome some 10 million visitors to Ireland in 2025, contributing €5 billion to the economy and helping to sustain about 250,000 jobs.

Commenting on the plans for 2015 and beyond Niall Gibbons said: “Next year, we will continue to place a major focus on promoting the Wild Atlantic Way, as well as on Dubline (the new Dublin Discovery Trail).

We will also promote specific themes, including ID2015 and Yeats 2015. And we will highlight the British-Irish Visa Scheme in China and India, which will enable Chinese and Indian visitors to come to both Ireland and the UK, including Northern Ireland, on a single visa of either country.”

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HOTEL MARKET

Irish hotels round-up 2014 Four Seasons to Intercontinental No sooner had the departure of Four Seasons as operator of the 192 bedroom hotel in Ballsbridge been confirmed than talk regarding a replacement began with luxury brands owned by both Hyatt Hotels and Intercontinental Hotel Group reported as among the interested parties.

Dublin is under represented by international hotel brands and the arrival of Intercontinental in January 2015 will be a further vote of confidence in the city. Hotel trade and values have recovered considerably since the Four Seasons Dublin was purchased in 2012 by London and regional for a price of about €15m or less than €80,000 per bedroom.

Price per bedroom At the end of 2013, the Clarion IFSC, Dublin 1 sold for the top price of €200,000 a bedroom. This 4 star price per bedroom was well exceeded in 2014, by the likes of Portmarnock Golf Resort. Regional hotels also sold very well with many 4 star hotels around the country approaching or exceeding €100,000 per bedroom, such as Oriel House Cork, The Malton Killarney, Clayton Hotel Galway and Whites of Wexford.

The Strand Hotel, Limerick

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Irish hotel market In a year which witnessed further growth in the volume of hotel transactions Savills estimate that over 50 hotels sold up to November 2014, with over ten hotels sale agreed and expected to sell in December 2014. Hotels sold to date have a value of over €450m and this could reach almost €600m by year end. A number of hotels were sold via specific loan sales, at a value of over €200m, giving a total of over €800m. The Dalata acquisition of Moran Bewley Hotels for £455m is expected to complete in January 2015.

The emergence of repeat buyers was evident in 2013. This trend continued this year with John Malone buying the much sought after Westin Dublin, the Hilton Dublin and most recently the Strand Hotel in Limerick. A European buyer was behind the purchase of Aghadoe Heights in Killarney, Fitzwilton in Waterford and the Cavan Crystal hotel. However, this year there was a far greater presence from Irish Buyers lead by Dalata Plc. who added 6 hotels to its portfolio, while Brehon Capital added properties such as Citywest Hotel, Killashee House in Kildare and Mount Juliet. Other repeat Irish buyers included iNua, Talbot Hotel Group and McGettigan Hotels. Savills believe that over half of all hotel transactions in 2014 went to Irish purchasers.

Hotel development The opening of the 52 bedroom Dean Hotel on Harcourt Street, Dublin 2 signalled the first new hotel opening in the capital in almost 2 years. As the hotel industry continues its recovery Savills anticipate an upswing in the number of hotel developments proceeding. Work commenced on Findalter House O’Connell Street Dublin 1, where a 198 bedroom hotel is expected to open its doors in late 2015.

Other potential Dublin city centre hotel developments include the Former Ormonde Hotel on the Quays and 16 - 18 Pembroke Street where planning was granted for a 108 bedroom hotel. A planning application was recently submitted for a 50 bedroom hotel and office development on the site of The Pod nightclub on the corner of Hatch Street and Harcourt Street in Dublin 2.

HOTEL MARKET

Portmarnock Hotel & Golf Links

Recently sold hotels have produced planning applications for additional bedrooms. The Trinity City Hotel applied for an additional 23 roomsand Dalata applied for 12 additional bedrooms in the former Pearse Hotel. Complete refurbishment and rebranding is also a feature of the market with work completed at the Double Tree by Hilton, Burlington Road and the rebranded Spencer Hotel in the IFSC, Dublin 1.

Customer journey - click to checkout With the arrival of new hotel developments comes an opportunity to keep pace with the most recent industry related technology advances and new processes. This is becoming increasingly important in order for hotels to remain competitive and deliver a customer experience that is memorable.

A vacuum has been created due to the popularity of 3rd party websites where an opportunity for hotels to communicate with their customers is lost. However, the wide availability of mobile data devices allows hotels to interact with customers in a unique channel. Mobile check-in apps allow hotels to communicate directly with customers, giving them a platform to express their preferences before arrival on such things as preferred room, sharing the time they expect to arrive, and learning when their room will be ready. The aim is to improve the overall customer experience through a more personal, convenient and consistent service, and as a result strengthen the hotel brand.

The popularity of social media and the stringent requirement of business travellers to work throughout their stay, means that a fast and free Wi-Fi service is expected.

A report from hotels.com highlights that the most favourable room amenity among guests is free Wi-Fi. This can also be a tool for hotels to gain further advertising exposure and increase revenues, as guests may be required to like/follow on a social media platform before being able to enjoy free Wi-Fi access thus creating further opportunity to amplify awareness of what the brand entails thereafter and increase the hotels visibility overall.

A step further is the emergence of ‘Next-Generation’ hotels as seen in Covent Garden, London, with the opening of Hub by Premier Inn which allows guests to

The Malton Killarney

manipulate their environment with the phone app they used to book their room; this can be done in terms of controlling lights, room temperature and the television.

These hotels tend to offer tech savy, but smaller, functional rooms, a trend which is beginning to appear here in Ireland. Where these advancements will lead is uncertain but the definition of a ‘hotel experience’ is certainly changing.

Aaron Spring, Surveyor

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GMIT NEWS

FoodieForum & Gastronomy West merge to host largest culinary event in the West Following two successful events in 2012 and 2013 “The FoodieForum” is set to return to the GMIT campus on 03rd February, 2015 with yet another remarkable schedule. This hugely successful event, the only one of its kind in an educational environment, is already attracting significant interest from chefs, food producers, craft brewers, restaurateurs and culinary enthusiasts from around the country. The 2015 event will see the FoodieForum team merge with Gastronomy West, a symposium which brings together experts and key note speakers on gastronomy and tourism. Speakers will present on a range of topics including; Eco and Adventure Tourism, “Seaweed and longevity - Improving the Irish diet with the consumption of Seaweed”, “The tourism experience in a rural environment”, “Food trail development” and “Managing your digital shop window - A case study presentation”.

College of Tourism & Arts As well as participating GMIT in these contemporary Dublin Road, Galway debates, delegates will Tel: +353 (0)91 742343 have an opportunity to Web: www.gmit.ie/cta partake in food, wine, spirits and craft beer Cait Noone master classes as well as Head of College visit some of the best T: +353 (0)91 742236 artisan producers from the E: Cait.Noone@gmit.ie region who will be displaying and offering Gerry Talbot food tastes in the “Made in Head of Department: Galway” Artisan market. An Culinary Arts impressive line-up of Service Industries contributors have joined T: +353 (0)91 742320 TheFoodieForum team in E: Gerry.Talbot@gmit.ie their quest to educate on the growing importance of Gerry O’Neill the provenance of food, the Head of Department: support of local suppliers Heritage & Tourism and the use of seasonal Humanities & Languages Irish food.

T: +353 (0)91 742294 Some of Ireland’s most E: Gerry.ONeill@gmit.ie celebrated chefs will be present on the day and a Dates for your Diary c o l l a b o r a t i v e demonstration by Sally Institute Open days McKenna and Kevin January, Saturday 24th Thornton will undoubtedly 9.30am-1pm be one of the highlights of April, Saturday 18th-9.30-1pm the day. Speakers on the Foodie Forum & Gastronomy craft beer industry include West Caroline Hennessy and Tuesday 3rd February, GMIT Kristen Jensen, authors of Into the West Expo the hugely successful Sat 21st-Sunday 22nd February, Sláinte - The Complete RDS Guide to Irish Craft Beer IHF Conference and Cider and in the “Meet 22nd-24th February 2015, the Brewers” area visitors Slieve Russell Hotel can get the opportunity to College of Tourism & Arts speak with the craft Careers Fair brewers and sample some Wednesday 11th March, products.

1.30pm-4pm Leading Food commen"Spread the Word" tator and Author of the Book your stand now by McKenna’s Guides series emailing linksoffice@gmit.ie John McKenna says that “The Foodie Forum is a

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The Gastronomy West Symposium Orgnisers, L to R, CTA lecturers Maria Conboy, Martin Ruffley and Anne Brindley

The Foodie Forum Organisers - L to R, CTA Lecturers Cormac Handy,Colin Gilligan and Jacinta Dalton

particularly inspired initiative because it gives students what is the rarest thing in their days as a student: real live events under real live pressure in live time. They have to step out of their student skins into the real world, and whilst it’s certainly a cathartic experience, it’s an experience they will never forget” GMIT lecturer and one of the event organisers, Jacinta Dalton says that the event takes food education to a different level. “As well as giving our students the opportunity to interact with key players in the Irish food industry, the event also creates an opportunity for chefs, restaurateurs, producers, academics, business advisors and members of the general public to debate, mingle, network and in many cases forge very successful and lucrative business relationships” she explains. The event, always proves to be a highlight on the national food events calendar and is a huge success due in part to the interactive nature of the day, The organisers believe that this enhanced format with Gastronomy West for 2015 will offer even more choice to visitors and look forward to yet another hugely successful, educational food event.

The event is open to the general public and industry colleagues.

Admission is by ticket only and is set to attract a large number of visitors and in the first instance all wishing to attend the event can reserve tickets via the website www.thefoodieforum.net For regular updates follow the team on @thefoodieforum @gastrowest

GMIT NEWS

What’s happening in Tourism?

In November 2014, Tourism Lecturers Margaret Gannon and Maria Murphy from the college of Tourism and Arts attended World Travel Market in London’s Excel. This is one of the largest gatherings of Tourism Specialists and Tourism Organisations in the World and is held every November in London.

The majority of Countries in the World presented their tourism offerings in an innovative and creative manner. Each country had an exhibition stand which offered information on the tourism products on offer and highlighted the unique tourism experiences that awaited the visitors to these countries.

In addition to the exhibition stands, a multitude of informative lectures, seminars and information sessions ran over the period of the event. A major focus of the World Travel Market is the issues of ‘sustainable’ ‘eco’ and ‘green’ tourism.

Technology in tourism and the growth and importance of social media was a major focus of this years event. A review of emerging trends in tourism was presented throughout these lectures. Themes ranged from; ‘creative tourism’ where participation in activities formed the central focus, to medical and wellness tourism, activity tourism and ‘voluntourism’, to name but a few. Presentations were made on topics including transportation, marketing, the hotel industry, the hostel sector, food and beverage provision and its importance in the tourism product offering.

The College of Tourism and Arts, Careers Fair 2015

The annual College of Tourism and Arts Careers Fair will take place in GMIT on Wednesday the 11th of March. Each year this event is oversubscribed and this year will be of no exception. In 2014 we hosted over 60 industry colleagues attending from Ireland, the U.K and the U.S.A., all recruiting for over 150 positions in hotels, restaurants, tourism projects, and catering companies both at home and abroad.

This is a free event hosted by the College of Tourism and Arts, and well worth participating in.

The event is open to students looking for placements and internships for summer 2015, to graduates both present and past, and to the general public. Experience has proven that those companies that attend the careers fair, are more likely to secure students and graduates, than those who don’t attend. If you would like to be on the mailing list for an invitation to attend for March 2015, please email the LINKS Office at: CTAevents@gmit.ie

Margaret and Maria attended many different seminars, presentations and lectures, and gained invaluable up to date information which can now be disseminated to students pursuing tourism in GMIT. They also visited many of the tourism exhibition stands to gather information on specific destinations for their students who are preparing reports on international and environmental tourism destinations and resorts, and information on tourism operations and international tourism organisations.

Attendance at this event has been most beneficial from an academic perspective, as many of the presenters were affiliated with the leading tourism education institutions internationally. The United Nations World Tourism Organisation were present and involved in the planning and running of this great international tourism event.

In the recent Programmatic Review carried out in the CTA, a proposed new Level 7 degree in Tourism Studies is to begin in September 2015. A number of new innovative Tourism modules around some of the above themes have been designed with both theoretical and practical elements for inclusion in the degree. One such module will include a mandatory 5 credit module in year 3 built around students’ attendance at World Travel Market in London. It will be a 100% based assessment around the International visit incorporating a flexible learning based approach.

Tourism students visit Dublin On Wednesday the 12th November 2014, eighteen BB Tourism Management Year 2 students undertook a field trip to Dublin with their lecturers from the College of Tourism and Arts, Maria Murphy and John Carty.

They experienced the transport product on the early train journey from Galway to Dublin and began the touring at the Guinness Storehouse, where they were greeted by the Visitor Experience Team. John Higgins, a GMIT graduate (HC Business in Tourism) gave a guided tour of Ireland’s number one visitor attraction and the group also had a presentation on the work placement programme at the Guinness Storehouse. Some of the group were tutored on how to pour the perfect pint and received certificates for their achievements.

After enjoying the views and sampling the product at the Guinness Storehouse Gravity Bar, the group made the short walk to Dublinia Experience Viking and Medieval Dublin. They enjoyed the self-guided tour and had a talk from the Sales and Marketing Manager about the attraction and how it is marketed in todays competitive environment.

Another short walk across the River Liffey brought the group to the Smithfield area where they visited the Generator Dublin hostel. This “poshtel” (posh hostel) is leading the way in it’s hostel offering and has been recognised with a number of awards. The group enjoyed viewing the social spaces and a tour and talk from the General Manager and Revenue Manager. They spoke about the business and also offered career advice to the students.

To finish off the day, the group made the short walk to the Old Jameson Distillery. We were met outside the door by Ray Dempsey, another GMIT graduate (Hotel and Catering Management - Block Release) who gave us an overview of the building before welcoming us inside with a sample of the Jameson product in this popular tourism attraction. Ray presented a wonderful overview of the business, tracking its development and sharing future plans for this top Irish attraction. Ray offered words of advice and encouragement to the students in their tourism careers and spoke of possible work placement opportunities with the Old Jameson Distillery. Pat brought us on a tour of the attraction and eight of the students participated in a whiskey tasting tutorial, all receiving certificates of participation.

With the newly acquired certificates under their arms, the group made the train trip back to Galway with new ideas, lots of advice and possible work placement contacts. The journey back was much quieter as the students were exhausted after the busy day of being a stourist (student tourist!).

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HOTEL BRANDS

Brands or family?

- the hotel dilemma Frank Corr looks at the rise and fall of hotel brands in Ireland The decision of the Livingstone Group to cease operating its Ballsbridge Hotel in Dublin under the ‘Four Seasons’ brand brings into question once again the value of international brands to Irish hotels.

Traditionally dominated by singleproperty , family-owned hotels, the sector has seen dramatic change in this century as international (principally American) brands became attached to some of the bestknown hotels in the country, including many built during the construction madness of the ‘Celtic Tiger’ years.

Most of these brands remain active in the market, but others such as Ritz-Carlton, Wingate and now, Four Seasons, have disappeared.

On the other side of the coin, Maldron and Bewley’s are new Irish brands which are active not just in Ireland, but also overseas.

Flirting with brands has been part of the Irish hotel scene since the beginning of the 20th Century when Great Southern Hotels was well established and marketed in Britain and Europe. It offered a chain of luxury hotels which stretched from Kerry to Donegal and during the sixties added motels in Killarney and Rosslare. In this sense, it was Ireland’s first hotel brand, and remained in business for more than a century.

The enigmatic Dermot Ryan also developed a significant budget hotel brand in the Sixties, but it was short-lived.

“ Bord Fáilte (now Fáilte Ireland) became interested in branding hotels in the late Sixties. It had seen the success of Best Western, the most enduring US hotel brand operating in Ireland, and encouraged hotels here to also come together in marketing groups.

Intercontinental was the first big Americana brand to invest in Ireland. It built its hotel on a prime site in Ballsbridge in the early Sixties and (after a little arm-twisting by some politicians), also agreed to build hotels in Limerick and Cork.

Bord Fáilte (now Fáilte Ireland) became interested in branding hotels in the late Sixties. It had seen the success of Best Western, the most enduring US hotel brand operating in Ireland, and encouraged hotels

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here to also come together in marketing groups. Best Western was, and remains, primarily a marketing group and allows member hotels to trade under their individual names and to be operated independently.

The initial response was the formation of Shannonside Hotels, Family Hotels and Key Hotels, but the most significant was Irish Welcome Hotels which was launched in 1969 with 20 hotel members. Its directors included Oswald Johnston, Douglas Vance, Barry McDonald, John Small, Beatrice Grosvenor (Castlerosse Hotel) and Harry Toner, with Fred Martin employed as its inaugural general manager. Elizabeth Fahy built on the co-operative marketing concept with the launch of her ‘Holiday Ireland’ group in 1978.

The Irish Country House Hotels Association was formed in 1974 to promote the properties of members and would in time create The Blue Book, a guide which was much admired by visitors and remains relevant to-day. Myrtle Allen of Ballymaloe was the first chairman and was joined by officers John Morgan of the Red House, Naas, Major R.B. Aldridge from Ballina, and Kevin Byrne, Longfield House, Cashel.

Bord Fáilte (Now Fáilte Ireland) was encouraging hotels to group together in joint marketing ventures and it was the catalyst in the formation of three new groups, Village Inns, Manor House Hotels and Coast and Country Hotels in 1986, of which the Manor House group continues to operate.

The Celtic Tiger years however, marked the era of US hotel brands in Ireland.

Frankie Whelehan introduced the Choice Hotels brands including the Clarion, Quality and Comfort. Holiday Inn, which was no stranger to Ireland, grew its Express brand here while Rezidor was very active in opening Radisson hotels in Stillorgan Dublin, Galway and Limerick. Hilton also arrived with a string of new hotels in Dublin, where its sister hotel The Conrad was well established. In 2004 Mount Juliet in Kilkenny also took on the Conrad brand. A number of smaller hotels took on the Ramada brand, while Jim Murphy’s Prem Group introduced Wingate and Days Inn. Marriott also arrived with a new hotel in Athlone and plans for the first Crowne Plaza Hotel in Dublin were announced in 2003 by Tifco, which had also acquired Clontarf Castle. Further

HOTEL BRANDS

Crowne Plazas followed at Blanchardstown and Dundalk and the company also opened a Holiday Inn Express at Dublin Airport.

Hotels in Dundalk and Mulrany were branded as Park Inns and Jury’s Limerick became a Hilton. In 2006 the Carlton Group opened three new hotels, bringing their portfolio to seven including a distinctive new property in Bunclody, Co. Wexford.

An indication of the influence of the brands comes from a league table published in 2006. It showed Choice as the largest hotel group with 23 hotels and 3,718 bedrooms followed by JurysDoyle with 13 hotels and 2,797 rooms. Best Western came next with 16 hotels and 1,519 rooms followed by Bewley’s (four hotels and 1,422 rooms). This group rose to third place in the 2008 league following its merger with Moran Hotels. Also in the table, An indication of the Radisson was fifth, Prem was seventh influence of the brands and Lynch was eighth. The sixth place comes from a league table was held by White Hotels, the group of published in 2006. ten Irish hotels developed by Jim White It showed Choice as the specifically to service his coach tour largest hotel group with operation. Not far outside the top ten were former Jury’s managers Seamus 23 hotels and 3,718 McGowan, and Richard O’Sullivan who bedrooms followed by in 2004 bought the Travelodge hotels in JurysDoyle with 13 hotels Ireland, with a total of 520 rooms, for and 2,797 rooms. €22m.

Some Irish hoteliers sought to create their own brands with the McEniff, O’Callaghan, O’ Donoghue, Flynn, Griffin, Lynch, Quinn, Brennan, Sinnott and other families building up small chains of hotels. None however achieved enduring brand recognition.

The exception was Jury’s, which successfully developed not just one brand- but two and while the Jury’s hotel brand disappeared in the wake of several deals involving the Doyle family and other shareholders, Jury’s Inns remains a vibrant brand with properties in Ireland and the UK. Jury’s can also claim some credit in spawning Dalata under the inspired management of its former ceo Pat McCann. This business has picked up the pieces of failed hotel businesses since the 2008 collapse, managing them on behalf of receivers, banks and NAMA, and in some cases handing them on to new owners. Dalata has also created the Maldron hotel brand, which is now prominent among the 37 owned or managed hotels operated by Dalata in Ireland the UK. The company raised €265m in an IPO this year and is reported to be the prime bidder for the Bewley’s Hotel Group.

Bewley’s is also a significant hotel brand to emerge in Ireland in recent years.

Originally developed by Bert Allen and bought for €350m by Tom Moran, the ten-

“

property hotel chain is currently on the market with a price tag in excess of €400m.

Meanwhile plans have been announced to significantly extend the Bewley’s Hotel near Dublin Airport.

While some international brands have withdrawn from all or some of their Irish hotels, there have also been newcomers, notably Double Tree, a Hilton brand which now operates the former Burlington and Morrison hotels in Dublin.

Radisson, Hilton, Conrad, Marriott, Holiday Inn, Quality, Clarion, Ibis and Days, among others, continue to operate in Ireland.

Irish developers invested heavily in branded hotels overseas during the Noughties, including the Gresham Group in the UK and Netherlands, Moran’s in London, Sean Quinn in the UK, Prague, Bulgaria, and Poland, Dermot Quinlan in Prague, Budapest and the Savoy Group in London, Sean Mulryan in Bratislava, London and Prague, Pat Doherty in Antigua and Jersey, Treasury Holdings in St. Petersburg and Sweden, the Prem Group in the UK and Belgium and Paddy Kelly in Sawgrass USA. Some of these investments have since been liquidated.

Despite all of this brand activity, the structure of the Irish hotel sector remains dominated by family hoteliers. Some have developed small clusters of properties and may be part of marketing groups, but the family name remains over the door, with the promise of a traditional Irish welcome. For over a century they have successfully competed with major brands- and are likely to continue to do so into the future.

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IMPRESSIONS

First impressions - the foundations of an enhanced bottom line

You’ve heard it time and time again - the power of a great first impression and how this sets the tone for the interaction which follows. Nowhere is this more crucial than in the hospitality industry.

In the case of a hotel guest, we know that an impression is formed early (when booking). For the purpose of this article, I will focus on the guest experience when they arrive at the hotel.

Hotels are always seeking to deliver an exceptional customer experience. So from the moment your guest arrives at the hotel front door, every staff member should contribute to a memorable ‘arrival experience’.

Time and time again however, I hear frustrating stories from HR managers that they find themselves having to address challenges of poor personal grooming/poor personal presentation and indifferent bodylanguage.

Staff presentation is only as strong as the least impressively presented staff member, so it is essential that it every individual plays their part.

Quality Experiences Quality experiences define the perceived value of a visit. So, how will your guest define theirs? How will you impress new guests and continue to service returning

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guests. It is all about the human interaction - check any of the hotel review websites for great feedback and the word ‘staff’ comes up time and time again as a contributing factor to any great experience.

Given that 55% of the first impression we make is determined by appearance and body language, it is crucial that every staff member presents themselves impeccably. With some thought and planning it is easy to get these first impressions right. However, it is easy to get wrong too.

The more expensive and luxurious the offering, the more important this interaction and experience matters. If you are a 5* brand promising a 5* experience, every staff member needs to look 5*. There needs to be congruence between what you are promising your guest in terms of their experience and how staff delivers on this. Unfortunately this is not always the case.

Challenges From my experience working with hospitality clients over the years, the main challenges for staff are: • Keen awareness that first impressions are lasting impressions and how these are formed; • Knowledge of an impeccable presentation - what works, what doesn’t and why in terms of personal appearance; Interpretation and implementation of dress codes/guidelines; • Skills - what is needed to present impressively on a consistent basis whether uniformed or not; • Motivation - taking responsibility and achieving an impeccable look for every shift.

Reward and recognition is essential.

First Impressions ARE lasting.

Positive and professional body language A positive, professional and welcoming demeanour is always impressive. When interacting with a guest, make immediate and direct eye contact and connect with

IMPRESSIONS a warm hand-shake (as appropriate). A welcoming and sincere smile sets the tone.

Personal Presentation Immaculate personal presentation (whether uniformed or not) right through from the general manager to the house-keeping and concierge staff. A clear, implementable dress code is desirable and reviewed/updated regularly. Heads of departments/managers should be responsible for ensuring the presentation of each of the team. Those ‘difficult conversations’ should take place promptly where necessary.

Impeccable Grooming Every single aspect of an employee’s grooming matters. Hair should be neat and tidy. Make-up (ladies) should be appropriate. Personal hygiene must be of the highest standard. Clothes must be clean and well-maintained and shoes wellpolished.

Personalise it!

There is nothing sweeter than the sound of our own name. Where possible, ensure that staff learn and remember your VIP’s or VVIP’s names and use them in an appropriate and discreet manner. This is a skill that requires confidence and finesse, and is hugely impressive contributing to the guest feeling valued.

If it is a policy that staff name badges are worn, ensure that they are worn uniformly and that the badge itself is in mint condition.

Surprise & Delight In my work with hotel clients, I stress that it is the small detail and personal touch that helps deliver excellence. These can help a hotel differentiate itself from its competitors. It is about staff going that extra mile to surprise and delight their guests.

Training Hotels must invest strongly in staff training and development on a continuous basis.

Competition is fierce and the guest is king. Staff presentation is a crucial area to ensuring that the hotel brand is represented to maximum effect and contribute to a great guest experience. Hotels can have all the marketing plans, financial plans, IT plans they wish, but if guest-facing personnel are not presenting themselves in an impressive and pristine manner, opportunities will be lost with negative consequences for your bottom line.

Frances Jones is CEO and Founder of IMAGE MATTERS. As an established image consultant, accredited executive coach and professional trainer, Frances provides a range of bespoke professional image, grooming, and communications training programmes to a range of hospitality clients. She also provides one on one coaching for senior personnel.

IMAGE MATTERS clients range from 3 star to 5 star hotels and include global brands. In 2013 she featured in the New York Times.

For a complimentary audit to assess your challenges and how we can design solutions, thereby enhancing your bottom line, contact Frances Jones: frances@imagematters.ie www.imagematters.ie 01-2696127

DIT

DIT Tourism Marketing grad at helm of new visitor attraction

Dublin’s newest visitor attraction opened at the end of November. Situated opposite the main entrance to Trinity College, on College Green, the Irish Whiskey Museum aims to provide a fresh new experience for those interested in culture and heritage.

The project is autonomous from the drinks industry, and is the brainchild of director Keith McDonnell, owner of Extreme Ireland.

Whiskey distillers such as Diageo, Pernod Ricard, Bushmills, Tullamore Dew and Teeling have endorsed the project.

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Managing the centre is B.Sc. Tourism Marketing graduate, Ailbhe Roche. Starting with a sales and marketing career in Argos Car Rentals, followed by City Sightseeing open top bus tours, Ailbhe’s career has been steeped in the tourism sector. She spent the past 18 months preparing for the museum’s opening. She

DIT states “We are delighted to be one of the most centrally located visitor attractions, across from the main entrance of Trinity College at the bottom of Grafton Street. To keep visitors returning to Dublin we have to ensure that we introduce fresh product offerings, providing a new experience for tourists.”

Converting an idle building falling into disrepair in the heart of the city centre, the interactive ultra-modern experience offers an experience unlike any other of its kind in Dublin. With an exclusive collection of Irish whiskey memorabilia dating back to the 1800s blended with a modern twist, it is a new concept for whiskey attractions in Ireland. It depicts the rise and fall and current renaissance of Irish whiskey and brings all whiskey brands together in unity.

Delighted to be offering employment to 25 full time staff, owner Keith McDonnell states that: “I see SMEs playing a critical role in bringing Ireland out of the recession. It was such a shame to see a beautiful building at the heart of the city falling into disrepair. Once the idea was born I was pleased to know that it would provide employment to the local community, offer something new to visitors and

would assist somewhat in building our whiskey export reputation.”

International hotel renovation expert seminar

DIT’s School of Hospitality Management and Tourism, played host to a seminar in November led by leading European hotel project management consultant, Herbert Mascha, Managing Partner of Austrian based MRP Hotels. This was the first time the School held a seminar in this area. Given the demand for additional room spaces in the capital, the timing was very appropriate, as we are likely to see a significant rise in renovation and conversion projects in the next five years.

Herbert discussed a number of hotel renovation case-studies he has worked on, including The Morrison, Dublin and Inter-Continental Frankfurt among others.The entire renovation process was explored, with the exception of the financing dimension. In his presentation, Mascha outlined the wide range of stakeholders involved in any renovation project: Owners, Management, Employees, Creditors, Departments, Guests, Market, Suppliers, State, and increasingly Public Opinion.

The value of a professional project manager was stressed, particularly in the context of the fact that so many internal and external participants are involved in the typical renovation project. The significant risks to a renovation’s timeline and budget were explored. According to Mascha the basic rule was to ‘expect the unexpected’ and plan around this. He laid particular importance on developing clear and consistent lines of communication among all team members from the outset. This poses particular challenges today, as so many of the project teams tend to be international, and there is a need for cultural and time-zone sensitivities.

Mascha concluded his presentation by giving attendees a detailed case-study on

the Morrison renovation which occurred following the recent change in ownership.

Among the factors he cited for the success of the renovation were the lean reporting structure to the new owner, the excellent team communication, and the relationship with Hilton’s technical and design team. If readers want more information on this seminar content, please contact Alex Gibson at DIT: alex.gibson@dit.ie

For more information about research in the fields of hospitality and tourism please contact the DIT Graduate Research School or directly approach DIT’s School of Hospitality Management and Tourism.

Graduate Research School: 01 402 3370 or research@dit.ie DIT School of Hospitality Management and Tourism: 01 402 43 52 or tourism.hospitality@dit.ie

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NEW BRANDING

Java Republic - at the cutting edge of what’s hot with new branding

As a proudly independent Irish coffee roaster Java Republic have always been to the fore of the Irish coffee and tea industry but never more so than in the past few months with the introduction of a completely new brand image.

Grace O’Shaughnessy, MD of Java Republic explains, “The brand is sixteen years old, it started in 1998 and back then yellow was in fashion! Now, a more modern clean look is in and it was time to update.” However, as well as changes in fashion, the consumer has also changed what they are looking for according to Grace. “The consumer wants to be educated, that’s what we’re finding so our new packaging reflects that and conveys how the product should taste, the quality, as well as information about us that hadn’t been conveyed before.”

Java Republic is the original Irish hand roasting coffee company and it’s a premium player in a current market place of over fifty companies. So was the company concerned that by changing it’s signature yellow packaging,the consumer mightn’t recognise it in such a dense market? “No, we have made our signature diamond logo bigger on the new packaging and we found that this logo is what people look out for. We have also consolidated all our products so there is now a strong, recognisable brand and a connection between our coffee, hot chocolate and tea products.”

According to Grace the coffee market is evolving and Java Republic are anticipating and responding to what the consumer wants. “Both coffee and tea are expanding. Coffee remains the core of what we do, but both are growing. Trends in coffee are changing too, it used to be for a predominantly a dark roast but it’s changed in recent times to a lighter roast, there’s more variation.”

This year has seen Java Republic further stamp its mark in the Irish coffee and tea market. As well as the new branding, Java Republic launched a new range of eighteen herbal teas in March. “Ireland currently has the second largest consumption of tea per capita in the world. We have identified a growing market in this country for premium quality herbal teas. Our new range of herbal teas are bioorganic, herbal teas and in terms of taste, there is nothing else on the market likethem.” Grace also explains thatthe company were part of the inaugural Dublin Coffee and Tea Festival in September this year. “It was estimated around 3,000 people would attend but we saw 6,500 people come through the doors, not from the trade, it was amazing. Consumers really know what they want and want to be educated on the products”.

The coming 18 months are shaping up to be just as busy for Java Republic as for the first time, Ireland plays hosts to the World Barista Championships in June 2016. “We are really excited. Every roster in the country will be involved and over 65 countries will be represented in the competition, it is huge. It is amazing to see an event like this in Ireland and we want tourists and everyone leaving the country to go away with Ireland in their minds as a destination for great quality coffee.”

Grace O’Shaughnessy

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IFSA NEWS

2014 - A year in review On behalf of the IFSA board and all our members we wish the Foodservice sector every success as we look forward to 2015. Looking back on this year IFSA and its members have been active in playing their part in helping stimulate the market and supporting other foodservice bodies to promote and support their members.

Launch and success of the first Dublin Coffee and Tea Festival

Stephen Morrissey, Patrick Bewley, Gareth Scully and Colin Harmon at the launch of the Dublin Coffee & Tea Festival.

IFSA proudly supports the DIT Culinary Arts Student Award 2014

Pictured (L-R): Sean Martin, IFSA Chairman, Frank Cullen, Head of School DIT Cathal Brugha Street, Louise Cromwell, DIT Student, Liam Mongey, IFSA Secretary.

IFSA supports the RAI in its successful VAT 9% campaign

IFSA on the road in 2014 as regional IFSA chapters are established

Foodservice Excellence showcased at Food & Bev Live 2014

Pictured at the Cork Seminar (L-R): Sean Martin, IFSA Chairman, Stephen McCarthy, Ulster Bank, Gerald O’Driscoll, Ulster Bank, Evelyn Hannon, Hannon Nutrition.

IFSA Christmas family members event

Derry Clarke and the Sodexo team celebrate their Sodexo Chef Challenge held at the IFSA Food & Bev Live 2014 IFSA MEMBERS LIST 100 Percent Italy 3M Ireland Aramark Ireland Arc International Avonmore Glanbia Baileycare Barry Group Bewley’s coffee Bord Gais Brady Catering Brake Bros Broderick’s Bunzl Irish Merchants Bunzl McLaughlin Bunzl Rafferty Hospitality BWG Foodservice Calor Catering Innovation Agency Ltd CaterQuotes Ltd Cheflink Ltd. Coffee Culture Combico Limited Commercial Refrigeration Limited Complete Laboratory Solutions Coppinger Corporate Uniforms Corcoran Food Equipment Ltd Dairyland Cuisine Delice De France

Dublin Food Sales Ltd. Ecolab Espresso Tech Eventhaus Exhibit FFT.ie Flogas Ireland Ltd Food Service Support Solutions Food Solutions Ltd. Foodservice Equipment Marketing Frontline EMS Frylite Ltd Fuse Graphic Design Ltd. GH Enterprises Glana Gleneely Foods Ltd. GM Marketing (Ireland) Ltd. Henderson Foodservice Limited Higgins & Company Ltd. Horgan’s Delicatessan Ltd. Hotel & Restaurant Times Hugh Jordan & Co. Ltd Industrial Hygiene & Catering Equipment Italicatessen Java Republic JD Catering Supplies Johnsons Coffee Kaneco KBR Foodservice Equipment

Kendermar Distributors Ltd. Kepak Convenience Foods Kiernan’s Food Ingredients Kilmore Quay Fine Foods Kingspan Environmental Services Lowe Refrigeration Lyreco - Nespresso Business Solutions Marco Beverage Systems Ltd Martin Food Equipment Ltd Matthew Algie McDonnells Ltd McKenna Fish Sales Michael Flannery Catering Supplies Ltd Milano Coffee Systems Mondel_z Ireland Montgomery Food Consulting Mulcahy Group N. Smyth & Co. Ltd. Nestlé Professional NevPak NewGrange Gold Nisbets Noel Recruitment North South Retail O’Hagan Design PaddyO’s Granola Pallas Foods Prestige Foods Ratio Brand Distribution Ltd

Rational Raw Food & Beverage Solutions Refridgeration Rentals Ltd Reservoir Renewables Robot Coupe (UK) Limited Robt. Roberts Ltd Rosie and Jim Gourmet Foods SCA Hygiene Scribbles Servequip Kitchen Systems Shoes For Crews Europe Ltd. Silver Hill Foods Sodexo Ireland Stephens Catering Equipment Sweeney O’Rourke Ltd Tech Refrigeration & Air Conditioning The Mount Charles Group The Pop Company Torus Pak Total Produce Tradewins T/A Wireless Solutions Trinity Purchasing Unilever Food Solutions UCC Valentine & Cuisine Equipment Ltd. Western Hygiene Ltd. Winterhalter Ltd Wonder Foods Limited Woodfireland

Join IFSA today - www.ifsa.eu.com or call 00353 8460020 50

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