Hotel and Restaurant Times Aug/Sept '16

AUGUST / SEPTEMBER ‘16

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T H E B U S I N E S S P U B L I C AT I O N F O R T H E H OT E L A N D R E S TAU R A N T I N D U S T R Y

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GREAT NATIONAL HOTELS

Forging ahead

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Contents

Editorial 4 News 5 Appointments 10 Dobiquity 11 Sales Focus 12 P.12 Bookassist 14 My Role in The Westbury 16 Tourism Ireland 18 IHI 20 IFSA 22 Millimetre Design 25 Fáilte News 28 P.25 Visualisation - Food Photography 30 Great National Hotels 32 Gas Networks Ireland 34 Citywest Hotel 36 The Ballymore Inn 38 RAI Symposium 40 GMIT 42 IT Tallaght 44 Food for Thought 45 P.30 Food Trends 49

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) Contributors: Pavel Barter, Dr Des O’Mahony, Susan Clarke, Colm Ryan, Caroline Gleeson, Enda Larkin, Conor Power, Fáilte Ireland, IFSA, Tourism Ireland, Restaurants Association of Ireland, GMIT Graphic Design: Tara Mccormack Printing: Turners of Longford

ALL CONTENTS OF THE MAGAZINE ARE COPYRIGHT OF HOTEL & RESTAURANT TIMES. H&R HOUSE, CARTON COURT, MAYNOOTH, CO.KILDARE TEL/FAX: 01 6285447 EMAIL: editorial@hotelandrestauranttimes.ie WEB: www.hotelandrestauranttimes.ie

All paper used in the production of this magazine comes from certifiably sustainable forestry.

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editorial

A word of caution Most commentators are giving positive news regarding our tourism numbers over the last six months. It’s reckoned that we have seen a 13% increase in visitor numbers in the period January to June 2016. There was a 16% increase in UK visitors... but this was before Brexit.

It will now be interesting to see how the second half of the year performs.

editorial

Worth noting was the utterances of Patrick O’Donovan, the Minister of State for Tourism & Sport, at the launch of the revamped Derrigimlagh Discovery Point. He cautioned the industry on its need to remain competitive and cited increasing hotel rates in Dublin as an issue of concern. With good reason. We are now hearing about £450 rates charged for a Wednesday night in a city centre 4 star property. A hotelier brought this to my attention.

He was fearful that no lessons have been learnt from the past, and is worried we will price the country out of the market.

Recently, I arranged to meet a business acquaintance in a city centre hotel. We ordered two coffees, which arrived with a whopping bill of €10.80. Talk about being mugged! I also spoke with an inbound operator at the Dublin Horse Show who expressed concern at rising prices. She feels we will begin to lose business, particularly to the North American market if this trend continues.

A number of factors need to come be considered. Firstly, we are still uncertain of how Brexit is going to impact business long term. Secondly, if the Minister of Finance believes the sector is increasing prices unjustly, he may negatively adjust VAT rates. Lastly, our North American and European visitors will opt for more cost effective destinations and pass us by.

Dalata, one of the country’s leading hotel groups, appears to have put any expansion plans it has on hold regarding the UK Referendum. The group suffered a reduction in its share value by over 19% since the Brexit vote, but some analysts feel this reaction was not reflective of the group’s strong market position. While its Irish operation continues to flourish and grow, this is a timely reminder of how quickly things can change.

It’s time for common sense to prevail. I appreciate the sector has had a few tough years within a challenging market, and reinvestment has to be paid for, but we don’t need another race to the bottom fuelled by greed. It is time for all those involved to address this scenario and ensure we remain competitive and attractive to our tourism visitors. So, over to you...

Cyril McAree editor

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news

NEWS Take it to the Bank Old Bank House Kinsale has won the Great Taste Award 2016. Out of 10,000 products, Old Bank House was awarded a gold star at the Great Taste award for its Orange Marmalade. Judged by over 500 food critics, chefs, cooks, restaurateurs, producers, food writers and journalists, Great Taste is a respected food accreditation scheme for artisan and speciality food producers.

The public have spoken The Great Carvery of the Year competition is now coming to conclusion. From Macroom to Mayo, Killarney to Letterkenny and from Dublin to Derry, the Great Carvery of the Year 2016 shortlist includes 23 of Ireland’s best-loved hotels and pubs from around the country. Now in its seventh year, the nationwide Great Carvery of the Year competition is firmly established as the premier carvery competition on Ireland and Northern Ireland’s culinary calendar.

All finalists will receive a visit from the team of mystery shoppers to find out who serves the best carvery in the chosen pubs and hotels in each region.

Speaking about the competition, Mark McCarthy, Business Development Chef at Unilever Food Solutions said: “After seeing this year’s shortlist, it is obvious that the public has once again chosen some of the country’s finest carveries and I’m looking forward to seeing which of these great establishments come out on top.

“At Unilever Food Solutions, we believe that a great carvery meal is about much more than just the quality of the food served; it is about atmosphere, value and exceptional customer service and attention and that is what the Great Carvery of the Year competition is all about; finding the best in class from a nationwide pool of immensely talented chefs and operators. That’s why we call on the public to vote and show support for their favourite establishment.”

Finalists will be invited to attend the Great Carvery of the Year Grand Final in Dublin in October.

The two overall winning venues will receive PR and Marketing support to the value of €2,000 each. The winners’ prize also includes a specially-commissioned wall plaque to inform customers that they are about to sit down and enjoy the best carvery in Ireland. For more details, see www.greatcarvery.com.

Seasons in the sun Seasons at the Guinness Storehouse has been named Best Event Caterer 2016 at the Event Industry Awards, which took place recently in the Double Tree Hilton, Dublin.

Dub stars meet and greet Ciaran Kilkenny, Paul Mannion , Kevin McManamon and Michael Fitzsimons, from the Dublin Senior GAA Football panel, were on hand to host a motivational meet and greet session at the gibson hotel with local youth organisations. Fans from St. Joseph’s O’Connell Boys GAA Club, East Wall Recreational Centre, and Cross Care Youth Group, met with three of the senior Dublin footballers.

Hot to Handle Bewley’s, Ireland’s tea and coffee company, picked up 29 Gold Stars at the Great Taste Awards 2016.

Bewley’s Fairtrade Special Blend Tea and Dublin Morning Tea were awarded two Gold Stars each.

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news

Galway to host European Capital of Culture Galway has been chosen to host the European Capital of Culture 2020 along with Rijeka in Croatia. Galway was selected from a shortlist of three Irish candidate bids and was in competition from Limerick and the Three Sisters Bid (Waterford, Wexford and Kilkenny).

World of Coffee Dublin ends on a high They came in their thousands to follow World of Coffee to Dublin. Over 6,500 people met with more than 1,500 exhibitors at 250 stands, over the 3-day event, at the RDS Simmonscourt venue. Berg Wu of Taiwan was crowned the World Barista Champion.

Flying visit Dublin Airport has invested €2 million to improve the check-in experience for four of its major airline customers. Dublin Airport has installed 62 new self-service kiosks (SSKs), between Terminal 1 and Terminal 2, that will allow the airport and its airline customers to process greater numbers of passengers by increasing the peak check-in capacity. The new SSKs are being used by Aer Lingus, Ryanair, CityJet and Flybe passengers.

Ocean View King Sitric has completed a major refurbishment of its bedrooms, according to Ireland’s Blue Book. Situated in Howth and owned by the MacManus family, King Sitric has welcomed diners and guests for over 40 years. The newly refurbished guesthouse now offers 8 en-suite guest bedrooms overlooking Balscadden Bay. Each of the bedrooms are named after an Irish lighthouse: Maidens, Baily, Kish, Mine Head, Hook, Tuskar, Rockabill and Fastnet.

New York state of mind Deirdre McGlone, Donegal Person of the Year and Harvey’s Point hotelier, has just returned from New York City where she promoted Donegal as a visitor destination. During her visit, Deirdre hosted a Donegal Gathering, which brought the Donegal Diaspora together.

Deirdre was accompanied in the trip by Peggy Stringer, of the Donegal Association Dublin.

Funding announced for greenway projects Minister for Transport, Tourism & Sport Mr. Shane Ross T.D., has announced funding for greenway projects in Kildare, Meath, Longford and Westmeath. The Minister said: “Since my appointment as Minister, I have been particularly struck by the far-reaching benefits that greenways can bring to the localities in which they are situated as is evidenced by the success of the Great Western Greenway and other projects around the country. These benefits are not just confined to the economic realm from jobs created and sustained through the construction of the greenways to the spend on food, drink and accommodation by those using the greenways. They also extend to the health benefits, both physical and mental, of cycling and walking and to the environmental benefits from a reduction in emissions.”

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news

Iron Men Fáilte Ireland has welcomed seven top US golfing media, with a combined audience of 15 million to experience some of Ireland’s links courses on the Wild Atlantic Way. The group are pictured at Connemara Championship Links, Ballyconneely, Galway, with Rory Mathews Fáilte Ireland and Bernard McMullen, Tourism Ireland, where they enjoyed a round of golf.

Tram about town Millions of commuters in Barcelona are seeing ads for Ireland’s Ancient East (or “El Ancestral Este de Irlanda”) right now on trams and trains operating around the city. Tourism Ireland has wrapped the trams and trains in giant Ireland’s Ancient East ads to boost travel to Ireland this summer. The campaign is running for six weeks.

Three cheers for Boyne Brewhouse

Jamaica and Mexico open for business Dublin Airport has welcomed the launch of inaugural flights to Jamaica and Mexico by tour operator Falcon Holidays and Thomson, a member of TUI GROUP. Pictured is Charlotte Brenner, Brian Carey, Mia Carey, Karen Carey, Nahla Carey, and Michelle Reilly.

The Boyne Brewhouse, a new craft brewery located in the heart of Drogheda, Co. Meath, has unveiled its debut range of bottled craft beers. The three beers, which are being produced using traditional craft brewing methods and local ingredients, are now available for purchase in a number of stores and locations nationwide.

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news

Lap of honour

The bowl truth Maria Betts, the creator of the award-winning Maria Lucia Bakes range of cereals, has announced that her range of gourmet granolas is now on breakfast menus at the majority of Clayton Hotels within the Dalata Hotel Group.

C’est magnifique!

Caoimhe Ní Mhuilleoir, Tourism Ireland Paris (right), with French journalists in the gardens of Rowallane, Saintfield.

Flogas has pledged its support to the Irish Paralympic team that will compete in Rio de Janeiro later this year, by becoming an official partner of Paralympics Ireland. Speaking at the announcement, John Rooney, managing director, Flogas Ireland, said: “We’re very proud to lend our support to Paralympics Ireland and I am very pleased to welcome Patrick O’Leary, Michael McKillop, Eve McCrystal, Katie GeorgeDunlevy and Niamh McCarthy on to the Flogas sporting brand ambassador team. They will be a credit to Ireland in their respective disciplines this summer.”

Full throttle Top Gear presenters Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc spent a weekend filming in Kerry in April, for part of Top Gear.

Filming took place at some of our top attractions, including Ladies View and the dramatic panorama over the Killarney Lakes.

The Great Escape

Top of the glass

Tourism Ireland’s latest campaign to promote the island of Ireland in Britain sees the organisation team up with Secret Escapes, an exclusive members-only travel club. The campaign includes a twopage article, pictured, in the June edition of National Geographic magazine, which goes out to 1.7 million readers.

Brown Thomas Dublin has officially launched the new bar at The Restaurant by Johnnie Cooke.

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news

East of eden Demi Yang, Tourism Ireland; tour guide Min Ling; and Traveler magazine journalists Ms Yi Feng (senior editor), Ms Zhen Chen (editor-in-chief ) and Mr Yao Wei (photographer), during their visit to Lissadell House in Sligo.

Signed, sealed, delivered Professional chefs from Ireland and the UK gathered together at the Waitrose Cookery School in London to prepare their signature dishes for a host of judges in the hopes of one becoming the Ireland and UK finalist in the S.Pellegrino Young Chef 2016. This year’s Ireland and UK finalist was George Kataras of M Threadneedle Street, London, who will now go on to represent Ireland and the UK in the final of the S.Pellegrino Young Chef in Milan on October 13th.

When a plan comes together...

Musgrave MarketPlace, Ireland’s leading wholesale supplier to retail, foodservice and SME businesses has announced a €2.2m upgrade of its Ballymun store, located off St. Margaret’s Road in Dublin.

Light up your life Pro-Light is Ireland’s leading designer and provider of retail, presentation and hospitality lighting. To date Pro-Light has designed and supplied over 300 LED lighting projects in Ireland, within the following market segments: Retail & Presentation; Showrooms & Display; Hospitality & Leisure; Restaurants & Bar; Commercial & Decorative; Internal & External. Pro-light is a Philips certified professional partner.

The write stuff Ireland will host the Travel Classics International writers’ conference in 2017. The announcement was made at this year’s conference, which took place in Switzerland. Regarded by many as the world’s foremost networking event for travel writers and editors, it’s a major coup for Irish tourism that the 2017 conference will take place here. It brings together celebrated editors from a wide range of high profile publications – including Condé Nast Traveler, National Geographic Traveler and Harper’s Bazaar – all of which reach hundreds of thousands of readers across North America, as well as globally. The 2017 conference will take place in Ireland’s Ancient East over four days.

A wild ride Virtual reality (VR) experiences along the Wild Atlantic Way can now be accessed via apps or on desktops. Fáilte Ireland has also unveiled its new 360° views of the Wild Atlantic Way, which will add another level of immersion when visitors research the destination.

BBQ Heroes Eoin O’Flynn, marketing manager, Flogas Ireland, TV chef Rory O’Connell and Grace Cox of Ballymaloe with some little helpers - Ryan, Robin, Eva and Alex Keating - at the launch of the BBQ to Beat Cancer Campaign, in aid of the Marie Keating Foundation.

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appointments

Team effort

John Healy has been appointed General Manager in Suesey Street restaurant and bar, while Graeme Dodrill is the venue’s new chef.

John ‘s experience includes managing Mezzo, Europe’s largest freestanding restaurant, which was designed and owned by Sir Terence Conran, and Dublin’s The Four Seasons. John set up his own catering company in 2012; his clients included the private clubs in the O2 and festival catering.

A native of Tallaght, Graeme went to ITT professional cookery course in 1996. He did his placement in L’Ecrivain and stayed in the restaurant for a year and half. Derry Clarke was a huge inspiration in Graeme’s early years. His next mentor was Aiden Byrne in Peacock Alley, where Graeme spent a year. Next was One Pico where Graeme spent five years under the guidance of Padraic Hayden and Eamon O’Reilly. Before Suesey Street, he was at the helm of Season and Mulberry Gardens.

Conventional approach Convention Centre Dublin (The CCD) has appointed Paul Gallagher as a new Non-Executive Director of The CCD Management Company. “We are very pleased to announce the appointment of Paul Gallagher to The CCD Board”, said Executive Chairman, Dermod Dwyer. “Paul brings a wealth of experience and understanding of the hospitality and tourism sectors, complementing the current board’s expertise.” Gallagher has worked in the hospitality sector for over 27 years with responsibility for hotels in Ireland, the UK and Eastern Europe. Paul is the current Chairman of the Irish Tourist Industry Confederation (ITIC) and of Irish Country Hotels, as well as General Manager of Buswells Hotel.

Call of Duty Joseph Scott Lennon has been appointed Duty Manager at Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel, Killiney, and is responsible for assisting the General Manager with the day to day running of the hotel.

Son of owner, Eithne Fitzpatrick and brother of General Manager, Mark Scott Lennon, Joseph has been working at the hotel since he was 15 years old and has been involved in working within every department in the family run business over the years.

Katie Farrell Appointed as Director of Sales at The Westbury Part of the luxury, Irish-family owned hotel group The Doyle Collection, The Westbury not only surrounds its guests in luxury and style, it offers world class hospitality and a warmth and thoughtfulness that stems from being a much loved family business. For this same passion to deliver excellent guest experiences, Katie Farrell has been appointed as Director of Sales at The Westbury.

Katie joined the sales team at The Westbury during 2014 and brought with her an excellent reputation in the industry based on her guest standard oriented approach, proven over 10 years of working in local and international hotels.

As Director of Sales, Katie will provide strategic leadership for all sales, revenue management, e-commerce and public relations activities and will continue to act as key account manager for Leading Hotels of The World and the American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts programme. Katie was also one of the key driving forces in The Westbury securing a place on the prestigious Virtuoso network in March 2016.

A native of Dublin, Katie holds a Bachelor Degree in Hospitality Management from Dublin Institute of Technology. Katie’s significant international experience with hotels such as the Millennium, New York and The Breakers, Palm Beach, Florida has allowed her to flourish in her role at The Westbury.

Osprey’s new star Peter Brennan has been appointed General Manager at the four star Osprey Hotel + Spa, Naas, Co Kildare, part of the PREM Group.

He joins the hotel from the company’s Benelux division, where he has been Group Operations Manager since 2013.

Peter began his career in the Grand Hotel Malahide before joining Forte Hotels in the UK, where he spent 14 years. He returned to Ireland to manage Fitzpatrick Castle, Dublin, and was part of the team that built Choice Hotels Ireland. From 2007 up to 2013, Peter consulted on hotel projects for developers and financial institutions before joining PREM Group.

Clio O’Gara joins Tierney’s Clio O’Gara, formerly Chief Marketing Officer of The Gleneagle Group, has joined Tierney’s as Head of Hospitality Solutions. Clio will be responsible for driving both the Aloha Point of Sale Systems - the world leader in Restaurant POS technology which is used in over 100,000 restaurant sites worldwide, and Guestline’s tailor-made property solution which offers a full suite of PMS, Channel Distribution and WebSuite Digital Marketing. Clio’s timing in joining Tierney’s is optimal as the marketplace now demands the most up to date data, whereby business can understand their sales and marketing activity, what drives their guest behavior, what creates an opportunity to acquire the guest and delivery repeat business. MD Andy Tierney is delighted with Clio’s appointment which he believes will strengthen the Tierney’s brand across Ireland as the number one IT Solution provider for the Hospitality Industry. “We are very excited by the addition of Clio to our management team. Clio has vast knowledge and experience in the hospitality industry, with a focus on Revenue, Sales and Marketing. Combine these strengths with her love for technology creates a winning combination for the launch of our next generation PMS & POS solutions. I believe that Tierney’s are now the full solution for the Hospitality Industry with the latest state of the art technology and services partnered with 25 years experience, allowing Tierney’s to ensure our clients businesses have the future proofed solution they demand.”

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dobiquity Dobiquity aims to transform hospitality operations A novel Irish venture, Dobiquity (www.dobiquity.com), is revolutionising daily life in hospitality by helping operators to digitise multiple operational activities from a single platform

Sample Dobiquity Apps

Revolutionises the ongoing management of on-the-job training in hospitality by removing all paperwork and ensuring regulatory compliance etc.

Allows operators to self-manage the mystery shopper process generating big savings, whilst still providing a high quality assessment of the customer experience.

Streamlines how operators measure employee satisfaction and engagement levels using an online survey tool.

Digitises the customer feedback process so that hospitality operators can gather feedback from customers whilst onsite or post-visit.

Allows HR Managers to digitally gather feedback from training course participants.

Amongst the many challenges facing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in hospitality, two of the most pressing are the need to ‘do more (with less)’ so as to better compete, and to ‘know more’ about the business in order to make smarter decisions. Successfully navigating these twin challenges is a key success factor for any SME operator.

Challenge #1 - Do more (with less)

Few managers would disagree that the only way to do more with less is by increasing operational efficiency. Despite this, any objective analysis of daily hospitality operations shows that inefficiency is more prevalent in SMEs than we’d like to admit; managers frequently complain they are drowning in paperwork and weighed down by outdated manual processes. Take a vital activity like on-the-job training as one example. Given its importance, you might imagine that this critical function has evolved with the times, but it hasn’t: in most hospitality SMEs, if structured on-the-job training happens at all, it most likely still entails reams of paper - from checklists and plans to dust-coated SOP manuals.

And that’s just one example of an important operational activity that lacks efficiency, there are many others.

Challenge #2 - Know more

No enterprise – and especially SMEs – can thrive without data: about how the business is performing, about what customers and employees really think and about how internal results benchmark externally. Again, few dispute this, but real life shows that beyond the financial arena, most hospitality SMEs lack the breadth of data to holistically answer the question ‘How are we doing?’

There’s a tech lag in Hospitality

“A failure to master these combined challenges is holding many hospitality SMEs back,” explains Enda Larkin, an experienced hotel manager and hospitality consultant. “Digitisation – using apps and other cloud-based solutions within the operation - is a proven solution here, but digitisation rates in hospitality lag far behind comparable sectors which means a sizeable opportunity is being lost.”

To analyse the factors behind this tech lag, Larkin conducted research with 100 Irish & UK hospitality SME managers to gauge attitudes to digitisation. On a positive note, many respondents indicated that they had already embraced cloud solutions to manage the interface between their business and the customer; digital technology had helped them to get closer to customers all along the experience journey. On the downside, when it came to using digital solutions internally to drive operational efficiency the majority had failed to do anything significant. Still, 80% said they would like to digitise more activities so what was stopping them? Five factors emerged as key barriers to digitisation at an operational level and are presented here in reverse order of importance: # 5. ‘Technophobia’ – A general lack of comfort with technology was a barrier cited by many. # 4. Implementation Logistics – A significant number felt that introducing technology would actually add to the workload because they’d have to manage the system, train others, monitor activity etc. # 3. Cost Implications – A frequent concern expressed was that SMEs were just too ‘small’ to benefit from digitisation given the associated costs. # 2. Security Concerns – Data/service loss was listed as a significant inhibitor to embracing cloud solutions. # 1. Multiple Sign-Ups - The greatest barrier identified was the fact that to digitise many operational activities meant signing up with multiple providers which was cumbersome.

Larkin adds, “I wasn’t surprised by these findings as I’d already seen them at play when working with SMEs. But I did spot an opportunity to help hospitality SME operators capitalise on the potential benefits from digitisation and that’s why I established Dobiquity in 2015.” Dobiquity (www.dobiquity.com) is a unique software service that helps hospitality operators to save time and money, work smarter and make better decisions by digitising multiple operational activities from the same platform - everything from quality management tasks to customer engagement to training, plus many more. “Dobiquity makes it easy and affordable for operators to ‘do more digitally’ and in a nutshell we offer two things to our subscribers,” says Larkin, “Apps and Analytics.”

Apps that help businesses to do more with less

Already, Dobiquity has developed five apps (see above) with many more in the pipeline. These easy to integrate products deliver immediate cost savings and efficiency gains for the business.

Analytics that help operators to know more about their business

But the apps are only half the Dobiquity story. Once integrated, they auto-generate significant analytics that allow managers to continuously review performance and make better decisions. Soon Dobiquity will create industry-wide benchmarking tools that allow individual hospitality operators to compare their key results against peers and industry norms.

Commenting on the growth of Dobiquity to date, Larkin says, “We’ve been astounded by the interest in our products and already we have subscribers ranging from 5* to 3* hotels, restaurants, pubs, golf clubs and business centres, both here in Ireland and UK, so there’s clearly a demand for our offering. Enterprise Ireland have recently invested in us and we’ve just secured significant private sector funding that will allow us to scale up more quickly, so watch this space!”

To find out more about how Dobiquity can help you to improve your hospitality business, visit www.dobiquity.com and register for your 15-day, no obligation free trial; alternatively, for more information, email info@dobiquity.com or ring + 353 (0) 1 6392965.

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sales focus

Sales Academy Interview – Tara Kerry Fáilte Ireland is currently enrolling for their Autumn Sales Academy Programme – a sales and management course which is tailor-made to support businesses to develop their long-term and strategic sales plans.

Tara Kerry of Fáilte Ireland’s Business Development Division explains more about the programme.

H&RT: What is Fáilte Ireland’s Sales Academy?

TK: Well, the Sales Academy is a new programme developed in 2015 to give Irish industry access to the best insights and most up to date practices with regard to international sales and management skills. We have partnered with Cornell University, New York, to give participants access to their renowned management programmes both in Ireland and New York. All Cornell modules are delivered by Professors from the University and all Sales Academy modules have been developed by an expert panel. So, we are talking about a course built on decades of experience in both tourism and sales. But most importantly, the programme content and learning materials have been tailored specifically for the tourism sector and are practical, relevant and immediately applicable. This content is useful and useable!

H&RT: Why establish a sales programme for tourism businesses?

TK: Simply put, there was a gap in the market. Our own feedback from industry partners showed a lack of tourism sales specific programmes available to accommodation, attraction and adventure providers as well as a strong interest in the Cornell Management Programme which we had had run a number of years ago.

After reviewing a number of options we felt that there was a need to develop an international sales programme, combined with full Certification in Strategic Hospitality Management from Cornell University New York, and that is how Fáilte Ireland’s Sales Academy was born.

Cornell University also respect the fact that Fáilte Ireland continually work with its stakeholders and tourism partners to grow the overall tourism product in Ireland , they also felt that the addition of a sales element would underpin the expertise of the Irish industry moving forward so we are delighted to have them on board.

To ensure this new programme meets the requirements of the industry, we worked closely with a number of accommodation providers and attractions – all of whom were active in leisure and corporate sales and marketing. We piloted the first programme in 2015. Since then 60 participants have graduated from the programme and we are now enrolling for the 3rd programme.

Who is this new course aimed at?

TK: Sales Academy is aimed at tourism professionals who are strategically minded, results focused and dedicated to excellence in developing and growing their tourism business. This programme can assist in developing sales and

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management capability therefore we provide opportunities for all those interested to attend a programme that will best suit their circumstances at a given time.

So, for example, those who wish to attend the sales element and related Cornell Modules can attend the ‘Sales Excellence Programme’ all based in Ireland, but those who wish to hone their management techniques can attend the ‘International Sales Management’ module which also takes place in Ireland but, additionally, in Cornell University on site in New York.

To help participants decide on which programme best suits them, a Sales Skills barometer can be accessed on the Business Development section of our corporate website, www.failteireland.ie .

Over the programme year, and through coaching and ongoing assessments, participants will develop the core skills required to be at the the top of their game as a tourism sales professional.

Why have you teamed up with Cornell?

TK: The strong relationship and understanding of Irish tourism was already there. Due to the previous success of the programme which we ran with Cornell in the early 2000’s under the watchful eye of Fáilte Irelands Mary Hall - we really were pushing an open door as the University were delighted to partner, again with us.

H&RT: What will businesses achieve by taking part in the course?

TK: All of our programmes provide hands on interactive learning opportunities where participants explore, develop, and apply ideas to advance their business and personal sales success. Modules provide inspiration for direct application of the learnings to each participant’s own tourism business and sessions are enhanced with national and international best practice case studies and current industry examples; online learning support; web tutorials and webinars; and expert coaching on the participant’s own goals and delivery of their strategic sales plan. On-going module assessment is work specific, will benefit the employer directly, and ultimately result in a strategic sales plan for the business.

So, if you are an Irish tourism professional who is interested in seriously upskilling your sales skills and want to learn the most up to date tricks of the industry, please get in contact with me at 087 2798961 or visit www.failteireland.ie

sales focus

Past participants on Fáilte Ireland’s Sales Academy “I attended the Fáilte Ireland/Cornell University Sales Academy in 2015. The course content, trainers, balance and delivery has been really excellent throughout. This course has enabled me to focus on the key aspects of running a successful visitor attraction within a tourism setting. Glasnevin Cemetery Museum is a relative newcomer in the market and our success to date has at times been somewhat overwhelming.

Another productive session: Recent participants of Fáilte Ireland’s Sales Academy gather in Limerick for the latest module

“The opportunity to participate came at a most opportune time allowing me to take stock and analyse our current situation. It encouraged me to focus positively on how to take our business to the next level using constructive and practical methods. These in turn ensure that simple, clear cut goals are employed so that maximum profits for the organisation can be achieved using the most efficient marketing strategies. The one to one sessions and ongoing support from all the trainers has been most reassuring.”

Ann Kilcoyne Sales Manager, Glasnevin Cemetery Museum “What particularly attracted me to the course was that unlike other sales management courses, this course had a particular tourism and hospitality focus. My experience so far has been excellent. I personally find the course very beneficial and commend Fáilte Ireland for the work they have done in putting it all together. The course covers all aspects of tourism sales and in addition to providing the building blocks for developing a strategic sales plan; it has provided me with tools to become a more effective sales manager.

“The course is delivered by real experts with proven track records in their respective fields including digital sales, revenue management, B2B sales, MICE sales, leadership and motivation to name but a few of the subjects covered.

Another positive aspect of the training is meeting and learning from other industry peers. Can’t recommend highly enough.”

Fiona Herald Business Development Manager, Guinness Storehouse “I attended the Fáilte Ireland Sales Academy Management Programme in association with Cornell University in 2015.

I have found it been to have a tremendous benefit for The Limerick Strand Hotel. The expertise of the trainers in their respective fields is exceptional and the link to Cornell is a big plus but the biggest opportunity is learning from your colleagues who are also attending the programme as we all have great ideas in our own properties that can be adapted for other hotels.

“I can highly recommend this course to any General Manager or Sales Manager. It will bring a terrific boost to your business as soon as the learnings are implemented back in your property.”

Sean Lally General Manager, The Limerick Strand Hotel

Graduates from Fáilte Ireland’s Sales Excellence Programme, which is run in conjunction with Cornell University, gather to recieve their certificates at the Alexander Hotel, Dublin

International Sales Management 2016 Mod No. Module Name Location 1 Leadership and Motivation,

Cornell University IMI, Dublin

2 Strategic International Sales Clayton Hotel, Galway

3 Strategic Sales Planning Mount Falcon Estate

4 Strategic Hospitality Dublin

Management

5 Innovation and Cornell University,

Change Management Ithaca

6 New Media Marketing for eCornell

the Hospitality Professional*

Times 11am – 6pm 9am – 5pm 8am – 3pm 8am – 6pm 8am – 6pm 8am – 1pm 11am – 6pm 9am – 5pm 8am – 3pm 11am – 6pm 9am – 5pm 8am – 3pm 11am – 6pm 9am – 5pm 8am – 3pm Online

Dates Mon. 10th Oct. Tues. 11th Oct. Wed. 12th Oct. Tues. 15th Nov Wed. 16th Nov. Thurs. 17th Nov. Tues. 6th Dec. Wed. 7th Dec. Thurs. 8th Dec. Tues. 28th March Wed. 29th March Thurs. 30th March Mon. 8th May Tues. 9th May Wed. 10th May Ongoing

Participants who start the International Sales Management Programme this autumn will complete Strategic Sales Planning in November 2017.

To receive full PDP Certification from Cornell University participants must complete four Cornell Modules.

Therefore those who start this autumn and complete Leadership and Motivation in October will choose three of the following modules in 2017.

Sales Excellence Autumn Programme, 2016/2017 Mod No. Module Name Location 1 Leadership and Motivation, IMI, Dublin

Cornell University

2 Strategic International Sales Clayton Hotel, Galway

3 Strategic Sales Planning Castlemartyr Hotel Cork

Times 11am – 6pm 9am – 5pm 8am – 3pm 8am – 6pm 8am – 6pm 8am – 1pm 11am – 6pm 9am – 5pm 8am – 3pm

Dates Mon. 10th Oct. Tues. 11th Oct. Wed. 12th Oct. Tues. 15th Nov Wed. 16th Nov. Thurs. 17th Nov. Tues. 17th Jan. Wed. 18th Jan. Thurs. 19th Jan

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13

Bookassist

How Do Your Guests Feel?

Owning And Managing The Customer Relationship

By Des O’Mahony

Hotrec (hotrec.eu), the umbrella association of hotels, restaurants and cafés in Europe, released a telling report in mid July on the changing distribution trends in hotels. The survey was conducted between February and April 2016 and relates to the year 2015. In total 2210 hotels from 25 European Countries participated in the survey which was led by the Tourism Institut of the University of Applied Sciences, Western Switzerland.

Figure 1 shows one element of the results, and further information is available on the Hotrec website. Direct business (website, email, phone, walk-in all combined) in the surveyed hotels contracted from 59% in 2013 to 55% in 2015, the OTAs predictably benefitting mostly from that change. To read this as-is, it shows a worrying decline in the most profitable element of hotels’ distribution. However, there are positives to be gleaned and lessons to be learned that can help you capitalise on this as an opportunity.

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Customer Relationship Ownership

To state the obvious, hospitality is first and foremost about the guest, or more specifically the guest experience. A key element that is apparently being eroded in hotels is customer relationship ownership in the sense of real end-to-end communication and interaction with the guest on the entire customer journey.

Managing the customer relationship isn’t just about what happens when the guest is within your four walls - hotels by and large are doing a great job here and are being independently policed/challenged by public review sites that give voice to every guests’ opinion. However, the clamour for ratings improvement has perhaps focused hotels too much on considering the guest relationship in too narrow terms as being the in-house relationship only. There’s far more to it.

Being able to reach out to the customer during their decision-making process, communicating prior to arrival, and following up post stay are all not just important elements of customer experience of your brand but are increasingly critical ones that are directly influencing your profitability. Often, the correct handling of these elements

Bookassist of the customer relationship make the difference between your hotel being considered as just lodging rather than as an experience. Lodging is interchangeable, but a fulsome and positive experience not only increases the potential for repeat direct business at lower acquisition cost, but it also creates brand ambassadors who recommend you to others and improve your reputation and ratings, helping deliver more direct custom.

It’s Not About Rates

Influencing how your guests really feel about the whole customer journey is therefore very important. The problem inherent in the Hotrec data with growth in OTA-led distribution is that while the OTAs deliver revenue (albeit at a high acquisition cost), a larger and larger portion of the experience of the customer journey for the OTA-delivered guest is actually with the OTA, not the hotel. The ability for the guest to assess good quality information during decision making, the confidence that quoted rates are good and fair, the ease of booking, the sense of security and confidence in the booking, the pre-stay information communication, the post-stay enquiry and follow up, the longer term poststay relationship communication – all of those elements are being managed superbly by OTAs, to your hotel’s detriment. The stay at your hotel in the middle of all this is but the lodging element of the overall experience that your OTAdelivered guest is feeling, experiencing and remembering. When they come to booking again, the ease of interaction with the OTA may well dominate over the experience your hotel may have delivered.

Given that rates are essentially on parity or not far from it one way or another, and that hotels have little excuse today in not being able to provide good quality information online on their own websites, it is arguable that the main reason that OTAs are eroding direct business is through their superior leveraging of guest communication and the customer relationship ownership.

The common threads to successful and sustainable direct business? - ensuring your website is fast and modern, mobile ready and designed to deliver real and current information; advertising on your brand during search and knowing your target segments; controlling your rates and showing clear value and preferential treatment/experience over OTAs for guests who book directly; making the booking choice simple with less options and more clarity, and using high-conversion booking technology; communicating with your guest with pre and post stay emails and tailoring/customising your communication to their specific needs; avoiding participation in below-parity discount selling via OTA so-called private clubs which cheapen your brand and encourage customers to remain on the OTA rather than visiting your site. All of these practices are proven to enhance direct business, and yet the majority of hotels are not investing sufficiently in these areas by a long shot and, through inaction, are sleep-walking into losing the battle for customer relationship ownership.

Customer Communication Management

Ensuring good email communication pre and post stay is at least one element that can be tackled without breaking the bank and can be monitored and analysed to assess success.

For example, Bookassist has recently partnered with the Czech web and marketing firm Virtual Zoom to develop a co-branded product called zoom-letter designed specifically to help independent hotels manage their customer communication at a higher level and in a cost-effective manner (see zoom-letter.com).

Integrated with the hotel property management system, zoom-letter databases all of your customer information into one cloud-based system and allows you to manage guest communication professionally and effectively. Pre-stay emails are professionally designed and can deliver targeted information to help your guest on their journey, and to also give you upsell opportunity. You can gather key information needed prior to check-in via pre-stay communication and help make the arrival experience at the reception desk seamless and more welcoming. You can communicate tailored offerings regarding in-house services pre and during stay automatically to help improve F&B and facilities revenue while assisting your guests. And you can follow up with automated personalised birthday wishes, news and future offers on an ongoing basis, filtered and focused depending on your guests’ recorded preferences.

Critically, it allows communication with all your guests, not just direct ones, and therefore gives you a real opportunity to upsell to indirect guests before their arrival and to convert indirect guests to the direct route for future stays.

Bottom Line

Leveraging Direct

Returning to the Hotrec survey, the first thing to note is that 55% of business accessible directly is a significant portion that the average hotel is managing to reach, despite the fact that many hotels are not yet optimised to fully embrace/ target direct business. The key therefore is to capitalise on this majority portion right now and work without delay to find ways to grow it rather than allow it erode further.

For approaches to this, we can look at best practice in the industry and also look at how OTAs have secured their positioning. We should take note of and learn from the major moves by the big hotel brands to address the imbalance between direct and OTA-driven business, as recently summarised online by Skift (https://skift.com/2016/08/02/this-is-how-hotels-could-win-the-directbooking-wars/).

This kind of end-to-end communication is one integral part of differentiating between your hotel being considered “lodging” rather than an “experience” for the guest. Often, the specifics of what you are communicating are not as important in the longer term as how the process positions the experience of your brand in the mind of the guest.

Making your guests feel important and relevant through appropriate communication is a win-win for both sides. As Maya Angelou famously said, “At the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.”

Dr Des O’Mahony is CEO and Founder at Bookassist (www.bookassist.com), the multi-award-winning technology and digital strategy partner for hotels worldwide, and is a HSMAI “Top 20 Extraordinary Minds” recipient.

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15

my role

A Stallworth of the Irish Hotel Industry

Joseph Downing / The Westbury

Originally from Glengarriff in West Cork, Joseph Downing has been involved in hotels for over 27 years. His professional career started when he was 19 years old but his education in the business started much earlier, in the family run Blue Pool House Hotel.

“So I grew up in a hotel, I was always in the kitchen, there was an Aga, there were cooks and chefs. It was where we had all of our Christmases and all of our birthday parties. Lots of memories.

“It was a country house hotel, so it was like a home in the winter time and then in the summer it became a hotel,”explains Joseph.

The hotel had 24 bedrooms and only three bathrooms, a set up that would not be permitted by todays’ standards.

“I remember one of the Rockefellers out on the landing and he had the most beautiful kind of satin paisley bath robe. I’m not kidding you, he had a minder and he was waiting to use the bath! But on a beautiful chaise lounge!”

“That wouldn’t cut it today but it was kind of acceptable back then. People when they came to Ireland back in 1979 or 1980 kind of thought; well isn’t this quaint.”

“But it was a very beautiful building, lovely furnishings and beautiful paintings, so it had great charm,” says Joseph.

After finishing his leaving cert in 1988, Joseph came to Dublin to interview for The Burlington Hotel with the late great Mr P.V. Doyle.

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“I did the interview in the Montrose hotel with him and he was inspiring.

Back in those days he was an institution in his own way,” explains Joseph.

“The kitchen manager took charge of me initially and I spent six months in stores. The most horrendous job. In those days trainee managers were like cannon fodder, they were the lowest thing in the food chain. I was six months in the meat fridge rotating carcasses of meat in a freezer coat.”

As well as training in all departments of the hotel, Joseph attended day release lectures in Cathal Brugha Street.

Although tough at times, Joseph relished the opportunity and got to meet some very interesting people. He was given the task of looking after Audrey Hepburn when she visited Dublin.

“It would have been around 1989 when she came as a UNCEF children’s ambassador to a big do in the old Burlington. She wore a pink evening gown and I used to have to bring her through the kitchen corridors and into the public areas like the ballroom,” he explains.

Joseph’s father passed away in 1991, and at the tender age of 21 he was given the task of running the family hotel back in Glengarriff. He ran the hotel for six years but was forced to sell up in 1996 due to rising interest rates that made the business unsustainable.

After that Joseph moved with his then fiancée to her home city of Madrid. The couple had met while working in The Burlington. Joseph had completed a TEFL course and taught English among other things during his time in Spain. He returned home in 2006 and found himself working once again for the Doyle Group at the River Lee Hotel in Cork. Starting as a duty manager he worked under the general manager, Ruairi O Conner for

my role a year and a half until he was called into the office one day.

“I was called in on my day off by Ruairi to have a chat. So, I went in quite nervous wondering what was going on. The recession was very much in play at that stage and jobs were scarce. I went in and he said The Westbury in Dublin are looking for someone to give them a dig out for a couple weeks, we’re quiet here, would you be interested? And I said absolutely.”

That couple of days stretched into eight years and Joseph is still in The Westbury in his role as Guest Relations manager.

“The job entails knowing exactly who is in the hotel, who is coming to the hotel and who has been in the hotel. There’s a lot of customer care and there is a lot of prevention and cure,” he explains.

Joseph has a team of three but often finds that if someone contacts him directly, he likes to give them his mobile number and deal with them directly so that they have one point of contact.

“They don’t have to go running from Billy to Jack and they can do it all through me. I’m a kind of fixer, I make things happen. If you want something done quickly I’d be the guy to come to.

“For instance, the other night somebody came up to me at ten to ten and said I need a heat pack. Can you get me one I’m desperate. So, I’m thinking 24 hour pharmacy where? There’s one on O’Connell Street, I know closes at ten. I ran down and just made it and got five different types of heat pack and ran back. They had no idea I had gone out for them myself!

“It’s humbling but I’m delighted to do it and it’s what makes the whole thing work.”

A lot of Joseph’s job is customer care, meeting and greeting people and following up on correspondence with customers. In his opinion, it is the blend of old and new that sets The Westbury apart from other hotels.

“The Westbury was built in 1983 and yet when you walk in, there’s a maturity about it. It has a sense of a bygone age almost. There’s an art deco feel to it. The aesthetic and degree of service is very much old world.

“There’s a degree of escape because it’s such a cocoon of luxury. It’s like a piece of coral and all the people that work here are like living entities growing on that,” he reflects.

It’s evident from Joseph’s eloquence and soft spoken manner that he enjoys interacting with people and thoroughly enjoys his job.

“

It’s a fantastic life working in hotels.

It’s never boring. I’ve never had a boring day at The Westbury.

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”

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tourism ireland

Tourism Ireland post-Brexit briefing and update on the British market Since the recent EU referendum in the United Kingdom, Tourism Ireland has been monitoring developments closely, to better understand and plan for the implications of Brexit. Tourism Ireland hosted a Brexit briefing recently for tourism industry leaders. At the meeting, tourism leaders heard Oxford Economics’ latest analysis, topline findings from research conducted by Red C for Tourism Ireland in Britain, an update on the British market performance and an outline of Tourism Ireland’s promotional plans to the end of 2016. Tourism leaders also exchanged their experiences to date.

Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland, said: “Tourism Ireland has been monitoring the possible impacts of Brexit very closely at home and overseas in recent weeks. Although it is still too soon to fully understand the long-term implications for tourism to the island of Ireland, we had a very useful discussion with tourism industry leaders. The British market will remain of significant importance for all of us in the short, medium and long-term. We have committed to continued monitoring of developments over the coming months. But, for now, it is very much business as usual. Tourism Ireland’s €4 million promotional campaign will continue to roll out in Britain from now until the end of the year, to highlight the island of Ireland to prospective visitors and maintain the strong growth we have seen in recent years.”

20+ million Britons see promotion for car touring holidays in Ireland Tourism Ireland teamed up with Irish Ferries to promote car touring holidays along the Wild Atlantic Way and around Ireland’s Ancient East. A joint campaign – targeting our important ‘culturally curious’ audience – reached more than 20 million potential holidaymakers in Britain, reminding them how easy it is to reach Ireland.

The campaign included a partnership with the Guardian online, which featured an article titled “10 stunning spots in Ireland – in pictures” and the chance to win a five-night holiday in Ireland; radio ads on Classic FM, Heart and Smooth Radio, which reached an estimated 2.28 million listeners; ads in national newspapers, including titles like the Daily Mail, Daily Express, Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph and the Mail on Sunday, which were seen by an estimated 14.5 million readers; and online ads on popular sites, as well as ads on Facebook.

Promoting Dublin and the Guinness Storehouse in Italy, France, Spain and the Netherlands Tourism Ireland teamed up with the Guinness Storehouse to highlight Dublin and its top visitor attraction in four important markets – Italy, France, Spain and the Netherlands. The campaign, which reached millions of potential holidaymakers, included online advertising, driving people to a specially-created page on Ireland.com where they could find out about the many great things to see and do in Dublin – and be in with a chance of winning a weekend break in the city and a visit to the Guinness Storehouse. The campaign also included email marketing, publicity and extensive social activity.

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tourism ireland

Ireland feels ‘The Force’ at Star Wars Celebration in London Skellig Michael’s appearance in the most recent instalment of Star Wars presented Tourism Ireland with a truly unique opportunity to highlight the South West and Ireland to fans of the science fiction franchise around the world. And the good news for Irish tourism is that this didn’t signal the end of the Star Wars journey in Ireland. Location scouts were so taken with the Wild Atlantic Way that locations from Cork, Kerry, Clare and Donegal were also selected to appear in the upcoming Star Wars: Episode VIII. To continue to maximise the Star Wars connection with Ireland, Tourism Ireland attended the recent Star Wars Celebration in London. Described as the ‘ultimate fan experience’, it runs over three days each year, attracting tens of thousands of dedicated Star Wars fans from around the world and providing a superb opportunity for Tourism Ireland to promote the Wild Atlantic Way and Ireland.

Emily Dodd, Tourism Ireland; Caroline Boland, Dingle Peninsula Tourism; Vincent O’Keeffe, The Moorings, Portmagee; and John O’Sullivan, The Skellig Experience Visitor Centre, at Star Wars Celebration 2016.

Wild Atlantic Way is “captivating, stimulating and spectacularly unique” – says actor Richard E Grant A new online film starring actor Richard E Grant exploring the Wild Atlantic Way has been unveiled. It’s the third in a series of short films created by Tourism Ireland and Smooth Radio to highlight the island of Ireland to holidaymakers in Britain this year. In the film, viewers see Richard E Grant travel along the Wild Atlantic Way, visiting places like Fanad Head Lighthouse and the Slieve League Cliffs in Co Donegal and Newport and Westport in Co Mayo.

Richard E Grant says that the Wild Atlantic Way is “a route where you can truly lose yourself in the best of ways” and he invites viewers to come and “experience for yourself the beauty and abundance and raw natural drama of the Wild Atlantic Way”.

The campaign – which is being rolled out in two phases – will reach about 5.5 million ‘culturally curious’ holidaymakers across Britain. It’s just one element of Tourism Ireland’s extensive promotional programme aimed at boosting travel to the island of Ireland from Great Britain during 2016.

Tourism Ireland board meets in Drogheda The d Hotel in Drogheda was the venue for the July board meeting of Tourism Ireland. The board members took the opportunity to meet with local tourism operators prior to the meeting, to discuss the tourism season and the extensive promotional programme which Tourism Ireland is undertaking to highlight the island of Ireland around the world this year. Pictured before the board meeting are Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland; Sally-Anne Cooney, Boann Distillery; Ciaran O’Donovan, The d Hotel; and Joan O’Shaughnessy, Vice Chairman of Tourism Ireland.

Richard E Grant, during filming at Slieve League, Co Donegal.

Say cheese! Tourism Ireland and Contiki team up on photo shoot in Ireland Top international travel operator Contiki has been busy capturing lots of great new photos to promote its Ireland itineraries, with support from Tourism Ireland.

The new images will be used by both Contiki and Tourism Ireland to promote holidays to the island of Ireland – both online and in brochures. Contiki offers a range of international tour packages for the 18 to 35 year-old market, five of which include Ireland – so this collaboration is a great opportunity to target our important ‘social energiser’ audience.

Caroline MacCormac, Tourism Ireland; models Matt Mantalvanos, Colleen O’Reilly, Aisling O’Reilly and Brian Rozo; and Rachel Storey and Ed Askey, both Contiki, during the photo shoot at the English Market in Cork.

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IHI

Martin Mangan, General Manager of the Conrad Dublin, took over presidency of the Irish Hospitality Institute (IHI) in May of 2015 following the Institutes AGM. The very high calibre of previous presidents include; Nicky Logue and Fergal O’Connell and this year Martin is at the helm for the 50th year of the organisation. The purpose of the IHI is to encourage growth, development and recognition of Hospitality professionals across the industry and it represents close to 1,000 professionals throughout the country. Formerly the IHCI (Irish Hotel & Catering Institute), the organisation was re-branded 10 years ago to reflect the diversity in the industry. “Hospitality is the term that describes the industry now and everyone involved in the IHI from our patrons to our individual members come under that umbrella ”, says Martin.

So why would someone want to be involved in the IHI? Martin, explains, “The IHI is the only body out there that recognises the individual in the Hospitality sector in the same way the Chartered Accountants of Ireland does. Other organisations focus on the business entity, we focus on the Individual. We are not in competition for members with our fellow organisations operating in the Hospitality sector, but rather we see ourselves as partners and have built strong bonds with the likes of IFSA, IHF and the RAI”.

You don’t need to be a business owner to be a member of the IHI; you can join as a student, a graduate and at any stage of your career. “We are about recognising an individual’s outstanding achievement in the industry, continuous professional development, networking, providing support to our members and promoting the Hospitality industry generally, is the aim of the organisation”, Martin explains.

Having seen the benefits of the organisation first hand, Martin’s passion for the work of the IHI is understandable. “My first introduction to the IHI was back in the early1990’s. I had been working in the industry for a while and I wanted to go

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IHI back into training and the IHI provided me with options to do that. It was during a time when employers didn’t really support people to do third level qualifications and distance learning or part-time education was still in its infancy. I did my Leaving Certificate but I didn’t get the points for the course in hospitality I wanted. I did not fancy the other options I got on the CAO so I began looking for other options, and at the time the Doyle Hotel Group offered a management development programme so I took that road. I went in as a 17-year-old and I spent five years there”.

“I realised that I needed to combine practical experience with professional development and that’s when the day release course offered by the DIT in conjunction with the IHI came to my attention. It allowed me to work and study at the same time and a lot of people followed that path after me. It was the beginning of my progression of lifelong learning”. I later returned to DIT to complete a Masters in Hospitality Management”, explains Martin.

Developing programmes that promote the industry is one of the aims of the IHI and a partnership programme between the IHI and Tralee IT has resulted in a Transition Year Programme aimed at TY Students and Career Guidance Counsellors in second level education. “Together we developed an online programme called ‘Tourism Insight’ to inform students and career guidance counsellors about the hospitality industry and the career options within it. “It has been an enormous success; the figures speak for themselves”, says Martin. “This programme was spearheaded by Natasha Kinsella the Institutes ex. CEO and the online content and programme was developed

by Tralee IT with Mary Rose Stafford of Tralee IT. The programme would not have been possible if it were not for the financial support of Fáilte Ireland, the IHF and the RAI along with our many industry partners who believe in this project and have supported it”.

“Before we launched the programme less than 30% of students said they would consider a career in the hospitality sector. After going through just the first module of the programme, more than 70% of students said they would consider a career in the hospitality sector and more than 90% said they would consider taking up a placement in the hospitality sector during transition year”.

But what does Martin hope to have achieved by the end of his presidency? “We have carried out a full strategic review of the IHI and this has led to a full rebranding, the development of a new platform for communication including a new website developed by our patrons, Net Affinity and a new social media platform to enable us to better communicate with our members especially the millennials. We have looked inwardly and outwardly at our organisation and set about redefining what we are about, focussing on our core values”.

The seeds have been sown by the work of the IHI in the last 50 years and now it’s time to reap the harvest and a very positive future for the organisation and the industry.

The programme will shortly be available in over 150 schools across the country. Martin asserts, “We need to be targeting post primary level students to promote hospitality as a viable career option. There are gaps within the sector that will cause problems in a few years and it’s not just chefs, or waiters it’s supervisors, managers, front of house staff etc. Tourism has been a huge factor in the recovery of the Irish economy and I believe we have a great ethos, a great natural product and a great culture of hospitality that people of any nationality can work in”.

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21

IFSA news

Catering Innovation Agency

World of Coffee Dublin Ends on a High - Thousands Gather in Dublin for SCAE’s Flagship Event

They came in their thousands to follow the hugely successful World of Coffee to Dublin for the first time ever. Over 6,500 people met with more than 1,500 exhibitors at 250 stands over the 3-day event at the 10,000sqm RDS Simmonscourt venue. IFSA was delighted to partner with the local coffee community to bring the largest coffee event in Europe to Dublin, an event which has great value in raising the profile of Irish food and beverage business across Europe.

The World Barista Champion and the World Brewers Cup Champion were both crowned, thousands of coffee professionals were educated and inspired and the parties will go down in World of Coffee history as some of the best nights in Dublin!

Organised by the Speciality Coffee Association of Europe (SCAE) and sponsored by BWT water+more, World of Coffee Dublin combined an interactive exhibition which even had a silent disco! There was also an expansive programme of educational seminars, talks and cuppings and the first ever Sustainability Forum which proved a very successful addition to the event.

The SCAE Excellence Awards, sponsored by OikoCredit, the New Product of the Show Awards and the SCAE Photography Awards were all given to worthy winners and the second year of Re:co the Speciality Coffee Symposium, where delegates discussed innovation and strategic development within the industry, was another great success.

The World of Coffee Dublin was supported by IFSA.

DIARY NOTE – September Will See the Next in the IFSA Seminars Addressing ‘Brexit and your Food Service Business” • What will happen to confidence and will buying/consumption behaviour change?

• Managing currency issues post Brexit • Future proofing your business & trade Details of Dates and venues to be announced.

THE 5TH IFSA GOLF CLASSIC

Another competitive and friendly day with plenty of networking potential is planned for the IFSA Golf Classic on Friday, 26th August at Newlands Golf Club, Dublin 22. Alongside the general competition teams from the various association trade bodies will be challenged by a ‘crack IFSA 3-ball grouping’ for the title of IFSA Association Challenge Champions and the Contract Catering fraternity will again compete for the coveted Contract Caterer’s Trophy. The day’s golfing will be followed by a dinner and prize giving at 8pm. Places can be booked for Golf and Dinner or for dinner only. Book your place before 17th August by contacting IFSA at info@ifsa.eu.com or by calling 01 8460020.

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“When restaurant goers take picture of kitchen equipment this is surely a new phenomenon .The Breeders Restaurant in Athlone has become a centre of excellence for steak lovers in the midlands.

The secret of this success is the new Mibrassa charcoal oven supplied by the C.I.A. the Catering Innovation Agency.

C.I.A. agents Enda O’Donoghue and Seamus Marnane believe passionately in innovation in food service equipment.

The Carlow based company has grown rapidly since 2008 and adds a Galway Hub this autumn. Smarter catering products like Palux inductions suites and energy efficient Merrychef e2s ovens have help progress and found favour with discerning foodservice professional throughout the country.

However the launch of the Mibrasa charcoal oven on the Irish market has been a huge success. The breeders Athlone love the atmosphere, the story and the craft that charcoal cooking brings. The customers love it too just check on trip advisor to see the customer pictures of the Mibrasa oven from the C.I.A.”

La Rousse Foods The latest addition to La Rousse Foods’ stateof-the–art Butchery is its specialised dry-ageing room that sees exceptional cuts of meats from Ireland aged to perfection. From Killenure Dexter Beef, Organic Rare Breed Pork, to Piemontese Irish Beef and Macroom Buffalo, all meats are carefully selected by our Master Butchers and prepared to customers’ requirements. The Butchery is also known for its Feirme Nadhurtha label that sees Jonathan Cahill, the Butchery Manager, travel the country to find the finest meats, such as Kerry Hill Lamb and Skeaghanore Duck.

The butchery recently celebrated the victory of Master Butcher, Eric Donnelly at the IFEX Expo in Belfast, who won the Gold Medal after competing against other highly skilled butchers from all over the country to display skills, knowledge and savoir-faire on different cuts of meat.

La Rousse Foods is an Irish award-winning fine food supplier, renowned for its bespoke service to customers with a cheese-maturing room and an in-house chocolate lab among other key features.

For more information: www.laroussefoods.ie Tel: 01 6545000

IFSA news

INNOVATE OR DIE This is the mantra business leaders both fear and encourage but what does it actually mean to be an innovative business?

Noel Branagh is Managing Director of Bunzl McLaughlin, a supplier of catering and cleaning disposables, who in 2012 created a spin off business: Bunzl Catering Design Solutions (CDS). Bunzl CDS would use innovation and thought leadership to take on the market of designing, sourcing and project managing the installation of commercial kitchens and catering areas.

Business leaders have long been told that innovation is the key to achieving sustainable competitive advantage especially in today’s globalised economy but innovation isn’t something that can be switched on overnight; it must be embedded in the culture of an organisation.

Bunzl CDS create an initial digital sketch up onsite and convert it into a fully rendered 3D model.

All your deli consumables are now within reach!

Whether you run a deli bar, sandwich counter, coffee shop, restaurant or take away, Reach Retail Services are proud to introduce a new range of non-food deli consumables featuring superior quality products, at excellent prices.

From coffee cups and sandwich bags to napkins and stirrers, Reach’s range features everything you’ll need for your business, supported by a customer service ethos that’s guarantees satisfaction.

And being a part of one of Ireland’s largest delivery and logistics’ companies, our next day guarantee means you’ll never have to wait for essential supplies again!

Value

Thanks to the combined ‘buying power’ of Reach Retail Services and our partners, we’ve sourced a range of quality products that are made available to you at the most competitive prices.

Service

Whether it’s online, by e-mail or through our call centre, a Reach representative is available to respond to your needs to ensure you receive the personalised service you deserve – we’ll take care of your consumable requirements so you can concentrate on your own customers!

Choice

Selected product lines are available for personalisation with your own logo and identity, while standard products come in traditional white or our attractive ‘It’s So Fresh’ branding- ask your sales representative for details.

Next Day Delivery

Backed by the distribution arm of Independent News & Media, Reach Retail Services trucks and vans already travel the country each day, guaranteeing next day delivery once your order is placed by 1pm.

For more information or to place an order, please contact: (023) 8858107 custservices@reachgroup.ie www.reachretailservices.ie

Resource is always the most important aspect of any successful business.

Investment must be made in recruiting talent with cutting edge ideas, skills and finding ways to integrate them into an existing team whose main asset is their experience.

Bunzl CDS has built up a team of 6 project managers, 3 CAD designers, 2 service managers, 2 sourcing specialists and a network of 100 engineers covering the whole island of Ireland. They have innovation, creativity and collaboration embedded firmly into their culture, enabling them to constantly develop new ways to differentiate themselves in their marketplace and sustain their competitive advantage.

Samples of Bunzl CDS’s portfolio of work can be seen on www.cateringdesignsolutions.net

We are Ireland’s leading importer and distributor of top quality Italian foods and wines since 2002.

Our mission is to supply authentic Italian products to Irish restaurants, catering and retail clients. We source products that sell really well in Italy, at the right price for our customers.

We select our suppliers according to strict criteria based on · Quality - organoleptic product features and ingredients, · Production Process & Ethics - companies sharing the same values as we do, promoting good eating.

Using a lifetime of food experience, we select only the best products at the right price. To ensure consistency, we monitor both products and producers directly.

We are in a position to supply a wide range of products – including niche ones.

For each product category, we offer different ranges quality and price levels, so our clients can better match their customers’ needs. Thanks to our in-depth products, market knowledge and rooted relationship with key players in the Food & Wine industry, we supply over 400 restaurants, catering and retail clients in Ireland.

Our logistics chain is extremely efficient and optimized through large movements in Italy and Ireland. We have our own warehousing, dispatch and delivery operations that allow for an extremely fast order turnaround time. Our sales team also act as Food & Wine consultants, helping our clients choose and sell the right products.

If you haven’t tried us yet, visit our website www.italicatessen.ie and call us today on (01) 201 1617.

Glenn Roberts, Managing Director of Hoshizaki Gram UK, comments:

The launch of the EU Ecodesign Directive means that there are significant changes ahead for heavy equipment manufactures and distributors. These changes should however be largely positive for operators as the objective of the EU Ecodesign Directive is to help the foodservice industry reduce energy consumption by ensuring manufacturers are challenged to bring to market more energy efficient products.

Hoshizaki Gram UK has always been in the vanguard of energy efficient technology and as such is perfectly placed to embrace the new EU Ecodesign Directive. The brand is proud to announce that seven models within its current portfolio including the SuperiorPlus 72 and EcoPlus are rated as an A on the new labeling system making it one the most competitive yet sustainable manufacturers on the market.

As the industry closely scrutinises the energy efficient performance level of refrigeration, manufacturers have to not only improve the credentials of their products, but also be completely open with how their units rate within the new labelling system.

Aiming to make the implementation of the EU Ecodesign Directive easy to understand for buyers and distributors, Hoshizaki Gram UK’s website has clearly labeled all of its products. It is also hosted a bespoke webinar to help the industry get to grips with the new labeling system, and aims to overcome its complexity and simplify the process.

For more information on energy efficient refrigeration, visit www.gogreenwithgram.co.uk or call 01322 616900 H&RT AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2016

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DFL Fitouts & Joinery specialises in both standard and off standard joinery, fitted furniture, reception counters and complete shop, pub and restaurant fit-outs.

Bespoke

is

Better At Delaney’s Bespoke Furniture we craft furniture, which is unique and

We combine traditional craftsmanship with the most modern design and planning systems to offer a complete design, manufacture and installation service. Our Fitout division are currently working on a new Pub fitout in Dublin, numerous coffee shops in Ireland & the UK as well as recently completing Global 5 restaurant in Dundrum.

We have our own modern joinery manufacturing facility where we fabricate all types of premium quality, purpose made joinery for all our own fit out projects as well as supplying Fire Doors and bespoke joinery to others.

unmatched for a discerning clientele.

Established in 1963 we have a breadth of experience that’s unrivalled and ensures we create exclusivity to every project we undertake.

Portfolio includes some of Irelands leading hotels and restaurants.

Recent projects include

Charlemont Hotel, Lillies Bordello, Conrad hotel, Morgan Hotel, Intercontinental Hotel, Rustic Stone & Taste, Brasserie Sixty6 and Bow Lane to name but a few

DELANEY’S BESPOKE FURNITURE 19C Grove Road Finglas Dublin 11 email tomdelaneydbf@hotmail.com Tel 086 3539418 Web www.delaneysbespokefurniture.ie freeneys advert.pdf 1 04/08/2016

12:27

www.dfl.ie / ww.barfitouts.com / Tel 00 353 51 374593 / E-mail : Thomas@dfl.ie

Pro-Light is Ireland’s leading designers and providers of retail, presentation and hospitality lighting.

With over 20 years of experience it has gained a reputation for quality lighting design, reliability & effective project support.

• Retail & Presentation • Showrooms & Display • Hospitality & Leisure • Restaurants & Bar • Commercial & Decorative • Internal & External

Branding - Signs - Display Specialist in Hotel, Bar & Restaurant Signage, Branding & Display Graphics.

Graphic Design Wall Graphics Lettering Vehicle Wraps Way Finding Window Graphics Large Format B1 Southcity Business Centre, Whitestown Way, Tallaght, Dublin 24

Tel: 01 452 0352 Email: info@freeneys.ie www.freeneys.ie

Recent contracts include Caprice Restaurant Galway with Millimetre Design

We listen and understand your needs Pro-Light Design & Technology Ltd, Westerton Lodge, Old Ballinteer Road, Dundrum, Dublin 16, Ireland.

Tel: +353 (0)1 2962607 | Web: pro-light.ie Pro-light are also a PHILIPS certified professional partner

millimetre design

Crafted to the last millimetre During the Celtic Tiger, Millimetre Design appeared to have it all.

But then recession hit. What happened next, wonders H&R Times.

When Hotel and Restaurant Times first talked to Millimetre Design, in late 2006, business was booming. Founded only two years beforehand, the design company had a raft of crowning achievements across the hospitality industry, including the €35 million Quality Hotel and Leisure Centre in Limerick, The Continental Bar in Portarlington, and Ramada Encore hotels in Galway and Belfast. But those were very different times. The Celtic Tiger had brought unprecedented investment into the country, and many hotels, restaurants, and designers, did not survive the financial decimation of 2008/2009.

So it comes as a pleasant surprise to discover that, a decade later, Millimetre is still thriving. How come? It adapted. When recession hit, Ronan Holohan, the company’s managing director, asked a question of himself: “Do we go abroad looking for work, which rivals are doing, or do we approach a different way of business?”

Millimetre Design expanded its markets and explored different areas of design. In a sense, this was always the ethos of Millimetre Design, a company where the devil is in the detail. “It’s not a specialist design company,” explains the MD. “We’re a design solutions company. We’re not looking at one particular area within the interiors industry.”

The company invested in staff, software and hardware, and began to work across every aspect of the hospitality industry, as well as across office, retail, and residential spaces. Holohan took on full time graphic designers who could engage in branding, identity and packaging. This way, the business could provide a complete design solution for a hospitality business: from conceptual planning to interior design, and to branding of the finished product, which includes menu design for restaurants..

“I think good designers need to be challenged and work in areas they are not always comfortable in,” says the MD. “I think it makes them better designers. We’ve now become a very unique entity.

We’re the only people in the country who have interiors, branding, and project management all under one roof.”

Millimetre Design has 12 years of experience on its side, alongside the accumulated experience of Holohan and his team of 22 professionals, some of whom are based in London and on the continent. The company prides itself on problem solving, as well as evaluating and advising on the quality of materials, products and furnishings. It is accustomed to delivering projects on time and within budget, always with creative design and flair The company’s newfound diversity led it into brand & packaging design for individual food and drink products. It has remained true to its core and continued to work in traditional hospitality spaces. Recent projects include a fitout of the bedrooms, restaurant, function and public spaces of the Westin Hotel, on Dublin’s Westmoreland Street. It recently finished designing the bedrooms in the Hilton Dublin Hotel on Charlemont Place, where it previously designed the bar and restaurant last year and a large extension project in the New Year.

Other projects include: an extension to Trinity City Hotel Dublin; a refurbishment of ground floor bedrooms at Johnstown House Hotel & Spa, in Co Meath; the opening of Caprice, a new restaurant in Galway; Glenlo Abbey Hotel, Galway refurbishment Bedrooms & Restaurant: Vanilla Pod restaurant, Blackrock; and Chopped,

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millimetre design

a healthy fast food franchise. Seven Chopped food outlets have opened so far; another six are due to open by the end of 2016. Chopped is an example of a client where Millimetre Design not only designed the interiors, but also the complete brand, including logo, signage, uniform design, menus etc.

Since the recession, many clients are bringing a new clarity to their business, according to Holohan. “If you want to do something, do it well, rather than offering every kind of food possible. The speciality restaurant is now successful. That was very difficult 15 or 20 years ago.

The likes of Chopped: healthy fast food is an incredible success story.”

Design is like fashion - always changing and evolving.

During the Celtic Tiger, it was all about opulent, overthe-top looks. Today, many hospitality proprietors prefer stripped back, industrial, or retro designs. “The beauty of working in a lot of different sectors - food, retail, office, educational, residential, leisure gyms, hotels - is we are exposed to a wide variety of requirements which keeps us on our toes and stimulates creativity. We keep our design fresh. If you’re focused on one area, you tend to get known for a look or style.”

Technology has changed people’s needs. “It has become a lot more social. The way we work has changed. People are more mobile, they work from home. Ten years ago, meetings were held in hotel boardrooms or in offices.

Now you see people in suits in coffee shops. A separate entity within a hotel foyer or lounge is important to serve that environment. Hoteliers are creating pockets and zones [for coffee baristas] to facilitate quicker meetings.”

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millimetre design

Nothing has changed in regards to the skills required to work within the operational environment of a hotel or restaurant, though.

“Some of the bigger projects are still broken down into phasing, just to keep the budgets tight. You also have to work around noise levels. For a hotel, the customer is king. It’s not a conventional site in terms of project management.”

Millimetre Design recently worked on a series of 60 bedrooms at the InterContinental Dublin Hotel.

It proceeded to refurbish the property’s Season’s Restaurant, then the foyer, function rooms, lounge, and bar. Work will commence on more bedrooms and corridors in August. More carefully-synced work will take place at the hotel over the next 18 months. Due to Millimetre’s extensive experience, it brings knowledge about statutory planning, rules and regulations.

“We understand them all,” says the MD. “Particularly the building control regulations that were introduced a few years back. A lot of design practices don’t have that knowledge.”

Millimetre Design does not rest on its laurels.

Holohan and his team frequently travel the UK and Europe seeking design ideas and inspiration. “We have to see what the next possibility is. We don’t want to be trend followers, we want to be trend setters for our clients,” he says.

“

When financial collapse occurred, there was always a risk that Millimetre Design’s hard work would be thrown on the funeral pyre of the Celtic Tiger. But this design company seized opportunity in the face of recession. In 2016, it appears stronger than ever.

I think good designers need to be challenged and work in areas they are not always comfortable in

”

“It wasn’t easy,” contends Holohan. “It was tough.

It was a fight. But we fought hard. We fought well.

And we were clever. We got ourselves into other areas of design that were interesting, that we knew we could deliver on. Now we are a stronger, more flexible company. People’s perception of us is even better than before the recession. That’s the way we want to drive it forward into the future. We want to continue to strive for excellence in all we do and continue to deliver complete design solutions that help our clients grow their business”.

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fáilte news

Ireland’s Best Beauty Spots Just a Click Away Images of some of Ireland’s most remote and beautiful locations are now available to view for the first time on Google’s Street View. Locations such as Erris Head Loop on the Wild Atlantic Way, Melifont Abbey in Ireland’s Ancient East and Howth Head in Dublin can now be accessed in Street View and seen from all angles with 360 degree views.

Throughout last year, Fáilte Ireland borrowed the Google Trekker to document many of Ireland’s remotest tourism beauty spots for Google Street View, along the Wild Atlantic Way, throughout Ireland’s Ancient East and in Dublin city and county. It is these captured images which are now available to viewers worldwide.

Over €1m Announced for two Wild Atlantic Way Projects The Minister of State for Tourism and Sport Patrick O’Donovan recently announced almost €1.125m in funding from Fáilte Ireland’s Capital Grants Allocation for 2016 for two key projects along the Wild Atlantic Way. A grant of €896k is being made available to Galway County Council for the Connemara Greenway and a grant of €225k is being allocated to the OPW towards Phase 1 of the development of new visitor facilities on the Great Blasket Island.

The Connemara Greenway will develop a new section of the route from Cloonbeg to Athry, running adjacent to Ballynahinch Castle, with an estimated completion date of May 2017.

The Blasket Centre grant will assist the OPW in their overall development of the site by funding new facilities and services on the Island – expected to be completed later this summer.

Fáilte Ireland and Google partner to put Ireland on the Map

Champions All the Way The local ‘Fáilte’ is about to get even warmer in Dublin as 80 tourism workers across the city and county have stepped up to become “Dublin Champions” and are now fully trained to unlock some of Dublin’s hidden stories and experiences for visitors. The group of front-line tourism workers were recognised at a special reception in City Hall for completing the Dublin Champions Programme, a new initiative, developed by Fáilte Ireland to ensure visitors to Dublin city and county receive a first class experience.

Explaining the initiative, Mark Rowlette from Fáilte Ireland said “This initiative is all about channelling the knowledge and enthusiasm that front of house staff have for their city. Visitors rely on the recommendations and advice given to them by front of office staff and the Champions Programme seeks to ensure that across Dublin’s tourism businesses, tourism staff can are spreading the right message and ensuring each visitor is enjoying Dublin to the maximum.”

The Wild Atlantic Way has also been honouring its champions with 350 business owners, managers and staff from across the coastal route receiving an official certificate and specially commissioned badge to acknowledge their participation at special workshops for the scheme.

Pictured at the recent graduation for Dublin Champions at City Hall are two of our graduates with Daire Enright, Fáilte Ireland (far left) along with Dublin footballers Paul Flynn and Fiona Hudson

International Media Showcase Journalist Vijaya Pratap, The Hindu newspaper India, enjoying a visit to Hook Head

Fáilte Ireland Host Spanish Media on Back of New Route to Cork

Fáilte Ireland Showcase Surf & Bay Coast in Sligo and Mayo to International Media

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July has been a busy month welcoming international journalists from across the globe to experience all that Ireland has to offer.

fáilte news

Revamped Derrigimlagh Discovery Point Opened Wild Atlantic Way Development Continues as Site of Alcock & Brown Landing and Marconi Transatlantic Transmission Receives Significant €1.2m Makeover The site at Derrigimlagh, one of the Wild Atlantic Way’s key ‘Signature Discovery Points’, has been significantly developed to feature an interactive and engaging interpretative looped walk which will appeal to visitors and reveal in a compelling fashion the history of the area.

The entrance to the Wild Atlantic Way Derrigimlagh Discovery Point provides visitors with a range of information

Officially unveiled recently by Patrick O’Donovan TD, Minister of State for Tourism & Sport, the discovery point marks the site of two outstanding transatlantic technological achievements which took place just south of Clifden County Galway - the world’s first commercial transatlantic wireless station and the landing site of the first non-stop transatlantic flight.

With funding of €1.2m provided by Fáilte Ireland and project managed by Galway County Council in association with Connemara Chamber of Commerce, the new development provides visitors with a looped walk of five kilometres through a bog landscape of outstanding natural beauty where they can discover the stories of this famous site.

The walk is augmented by a number of attractive features which are designed to engage visitors and encourage them to interact with the history of the location.

Historioscopes located around the Discovery Point allow visitors to look back in time and experience how the site would have looked in the early 20th Century

“What’s New?” •

•

•

•

•

•

Minister of State for Tourism and Sport, Patrick O Donovan officially opened the new Discovery Point

A set of ‘hides’ along the route house old fashioned crystal radio sets and recreated sound effects airing recordings from the age of the Marconi station; A tuning fork ‘organ’ to interact and experiment with different sound frequencies; A wind reed installation which generates different sounds according to local wind conditions A number of ‘historioscopes’ which allow viewers to view key points at the site and see how they would have looked in the early 20th Century – including the old Marconi buildings and images from the Alcock and Brown crash site; A parabolic mirror – a specially designed sculpture which plays on acoustics, reflections and light

Fáilte Ireland’s Director of Strategic Development, Orla Carroll, takes in some of the new interactive features on the 5km looped walk with Alannah Joyce (5) and her sister Noelle (12) from Clifden.

A number of artistic interpretative panels telling the story of the site.

Commenting on the new development, Fiona Monaghan Fáilte Ireland’s Head of the Wild Atlantic Way said - “This development is a great example of what we have planned for the Wild Atlantic Way. While many consider the brand a success, we in Fáilte Ireland are only just starting and the Wild Atlantic Way has much more to reveal over the coming years. Part of this will involve the provision of innovative and well-managed experiences which offer distinctive and original appeal to overseas visitors.”

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visualisation

Food Photography Julia Dunin

Over the last five years’ food photography has gained serious momentum becoming a key part of advertising and branding in the food industry. It is considered the first taste for a potential customer with more and more media producers seeking high quality food photography to accompany food related articles, features and website branding.

Julia Dunin is at the forefront of the food photography movement. Having moved to Galway five years ago she discovered that many of Galway’s restaurants and hotels were lacking imagery to present their food. She began photographing food at different hotels and restaurants, with one of her earlier clients receiving a Michelin Star shortly after. Julia began to emphasise the importance of food photography to potential clients and quickly became associated with many high profile hotels and restaurants across Ireland and the EU. According to Julia, “The visual aspect of food is a big thing now. Everything is online, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.”

Businesses are constantly looking for new and creative ways to promote their food and quick snaps on a smart phone are inadequate for today’s industry. “When people want to eat out they go online.” says Julia. High resolution shots with lighting and décor all play a very important part. Julia ascertains that food photography goes hand in hand with branding. “The photograph must reflect and compliment the style and atmosphere of the business as much as the picture of food... A bad quality food shot will do a disservice to the business as the food looks unappealing and no sense of the restaurant is conveyed which will ultimately fail to attract new customers. Also, journalists are much more likely to feature a high resolution image”.

Julia is self-taught and has her own unique and creative approach, lighting and props are an important part of the process. The use of light and shadows help to create certain moods. A bright picture creates a fresh look for light lunch or

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visualisation

fresh salad images. A warmer, more romantic lighting invites the viewer into an evening, dinner setting. Julia uses sets and props relevant to each premises to give a sense of the place she is photographing, keeping with the theme of the entire business personality and brand.

A big part of Julia’s own style is her use of stark and vivid colours which bring the food alive in the photograph.

the pictures. “There is a lot of heart and soul in food preparation and food produce. Working with food producers you get to incorporate this emotion and passion in a different way.” This is equally as challenging and in vast contrast with some of the five star hotels and Michelin restaurants where elegance, simplicity and attention to detail is the epitome of showing the food quality at its best.

A great perk of the job is getting to taste a wide variety of different foods but it’s not all fun and games. “Food photography can be very challenging, timing is key and you really need to get your lighting and set right before you capture the plate as you only have a very short window to photograph the food before it starts to lose its appeal.”

Julia emphasises. To show the food at its best so that it looks mouthwatering in the picture the photograph needs to be captured within five to fifteen minutes of the food being plated, which can be tough if you don’t manage your time and work well under pressure.

New trends in food photography focus on a clean and fresh look.

According to Julia this new look is very minimalistic and Nordic.

“Previously the look was rustic, with wooden spoons as props but a lot of businesses are moving away from this now.” As food photography is still very much a growing industry there are many new styles and approaches to be discovered. “What lies ahead in future trends of food photography is hard to predict but it is very exciting.” Instagram is one medium to keep an eye on. It’s focus on imagery has given many food producers and premises a platform to display recipes, dishes and food products to a very large audience.

Traditionally food photography has been employed by high profile restaurants and hotels but it has quickly branched out to include food producers and food marketers looking to market their brand visually.

It is a different type of food photography and can be freer. Julia also works with portrait photography and really enjoys capturing the emotional side of food by including the food producers themselves in

If you are interested in seeing some of Julia’s work you can view her portfolio here. www.foodphotographer.ie www.facebook.com/FoodPhotographerJuliaDunin www.juliadunin.com

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Great National

Hotel Ballina, Co. Mayo

Great National Continues to Forge Ahead One of the industry’s success stories in recent years, the Irishowned Great National Hotels and Resorts Group continues to move from strength to strength with recent additions to its portfolio including the 4* Hotel Ballina in Co. Mayo and most recently the 4* Mulranny Park Hotel, also in Co. Mayo. Supporting predominantly 4-star hotels and resorts alongside deluxe 3-star properties via a range of services such as operations management, reservations outsourcing, revenue and channel management, Great National is now one of Ireland’s and the UK’s fastest growing hotel groups.

“We’re delighted to welcome Hotel Ballina to Great National given the hotel’s reputation as one of the North West’s leading 4-star hotels.

Our ongoing plans include refurbishment throughout key areas of the hotel so as to copper-fasten the property within the weddings, events and domestic leisure markets.”

Located outside Ballina, the 87-bedroom Hotel Ballina which includes extensive leisure, meetings and banqueting facilities, is operated as a Great National branded property under a long-term management agreement, and is currently undergoing an investment programme following its acquisition earlier this year, 2016.

Also recently acquired in conjunction with its investment partners, the 4-star 61-bedroom Mulranny Park Hotel will be operated by Great National. Overlooking Clew Bay, the multiple award-winning Mulranny Park boasts an enviable reputation as one of Ireland’s leading wedding venues; the hotel has also borne host to various VIP guests down through the years, including most famously John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1968.

Commenting on the Mayo property, David Byrne added: “we’re very excited about this opportunity as the Mulranny Park which in addition to enjoying an established reputation as a leading destination resort, occupies a key strategic bay-side location for us, adjacent to the Great Western Greenway.”

David Byrne, CEO for the Great National Group, recently sat down with the Hotel and Restaurant Times to discuss the Group’s recent expansion including plans for the future.

“Our two latest acquisitions brings to seven the total number of hotel purchases we’ve completed with our investor partners in the last 24 months, which are in addition to five managed properties: the Group – which is co-owned by myself, David Collins, James Sullivan and David O’Connor - now has a total of €60m worth of assets under management.”

David Byrne, CEO, Great National Hotels & Resorts Group

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Great National

Mulranny Park Hotel, Co. Mayo “Our business continues to be founded on both product and service excellence. We are significantly accelerating growth, reducing costs and improving market reach for the hotels we represent, and we look forward to continuing to bring this same impact to all our hotels including Hotel Ballina and the Mulranny Park. Our ultimate aim is to become the largest independently owned hotel brand in both Ireland and the UK.” On a separate expansion front, the group will also shortly be launching its much anticipated boutique budget brand, Great Nite Inn, which will initially comprise four locations – growing ultimately to 36 hotels by 2018 - throughout the UK and Ireland, including Cork and Limerick. This initial launch phase will follow an announcement in Q3 2016 in regards to first round funding for the brand and will involve conversions of existing hotels, featuring a superior bedroom standard, central locations, signature value and a unique ground floor F&B experience, ‘Off The Bone’.

Mulranny Park Hotel, Co. Mayo

Byrne added: “since our commencement in 2010, Great National has consistently made a difference to our members.

Our choice of affiliation programmes allows hotels to compete more effectively without the associated costs or long term commitments of traditional hotel brands. Uniquely transparent and quantifiable, we deliver immediate results in terms of increased revenues and reduced distribution costs for the hotels we work with, managed and otherwise.”

“We offer much more than any other international brand or marketing consortium with our low cost of entry, high performance solution. This is enabled by our group structure which opens up economies of scale and allows independent hotels to tap into proven expertise, netting increased occupancy loads and improved RevPar through various revenue management solutions.”

With its head office in Ennis and a regional sales office in the UK, the Great National brand now comprises 53 hotels, split equally between the UK and Ireland with nearly 3,500 bedrooms. The group directly employs 40 staff and indirectly 550 staff throughout the hotels it manages.

According to Byrne: “The challenges facing hoteliers going forward should not be under-estimated: our closest, and largest single market Britain is now officially in recession in the wake of BREXIT and this alone, even aside from currency fluctuations, the uncertainty regarding the North/South

Hotel Ballina, Co. Mayo border, and the escalation of terrorism atrocities, is already directly impacting on propensity to travel.”

“Our goal however is and always has been since we started the business to be the best at what we do in the market – from asset management to revenue acceleration and distribution optimization - creating a home grown brand that participates on the international stage for the benefit of all our clients.”

With this in mind, with both this recent and pipeline expansion (which will see a further 4-star hotel acquisition within Ireland by end-Q3 2016), combined of course with consistent growth in rooms revenues for its member hotels, Great National continues to forge ahead as one of the most important brand names in the industry, providing a much-needed, proven solution for independent hotels and resorts.

For further details, please visit www.greatnationalhotels.com

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Hospitality Sector Must Harness Potential for Savings Switching to gas and using Combined Heat and Power Units offers credible benefits

In his role as Commercial Connections Manager for Gas Networks Ireland Fran McFadden details the advantages available in switching to natural gas for the hospitality and catering sectors.

At a time when the gas network pipelines continue to expand throughout the country, there is also a growing range of service offerings that allows the hospitality sector to better harness the energy form. While the catering side of the industry has long preferred gas equipment for food preparation, Gas Networks Ireland feels that there is strong potential for the wider sector to benefit from switching over to gas power for a range of other uses. Principally this can be see through the installation of Combined Heating and Power Units or CHP that allow larger hotel premises to utilise gas in the creation of electricity and heating power on site. These units continue to become more cost efficient, securing a quick return on investment – especially given business concerns over rising fuel prices per kilowatt hour over the past number of years in Ireland.

Maintaining 13,832km of gas pipeline and delivering natural gas to over 160 towns and cities, Gas Networks Ireland sees the hospitality sector as an ideal area for expansion through not only hotels and restaurants but also smaller operators such as cafes and bars.

Case studies have indicated the possibility of strong savings for businesses that do make the full or partial conversion to gas, particularly with CHP adaptation for hotels which allows for a thorough evaluation of power and heating usage throughout a property. Combined with the current price point, gas also has an ideal load profile for the industry, requiring no delivery or storage facilities; something alluded to by companies that do make the switch as a considerable additional benefit in comparison to LPG or kerosene. With a straightforward connection process to the grid, users can then decide between CHP and traditional gas usage with current emphasis for hotels being placed on conversions to the former. This is due to the relatively low number of adoptees of CHP thus far of around ten percent, which McFadden believes is due to a lack of understanding about the true benefit of the system amongst the wider industry.

A CHP unit is essentially a micro power plant complete with an alternator that includes heat exchangers for the capture of heat energy that can be then used to power hot water and central heating systems throughout a building without any substantial waste. “It’s a perfect combination but unfortunately in this country, less than one hundred hotels are using CHP”, declares McFadden who points to not only savings that can be enjoyed by the industry but also the environmental benefits that can be found with a lack of heat waste from generation on site. This is made even more pressing given the timeframe for return on investment at the average hotel

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ranging between just two and four years with respect to variance in property size and energy use.

“The reason that we are promoting and developing case studies for hotels and on site generation is that the units are perfect for the industry, meaning that they have the right load profile”, states McFadden with respect to the delivery of reliable and secure supply that also boasts the highest efficiency and environmental statistics of any major fuel source on the market.

Those benefits are also combined with independence from the electrical grid and the avoidance of any power outages, although McFadden is quick to note that hotels are not required to break that connection and can use the less stable grid system as a backup supply should maintenance or any outages occur from a CHP unit. While those advantages are not to be overlooked, perhaps the strongest argument for conversion is that of the economic benefits and the bridging of the so-called energy ‘smart gap’. Onsite CHP generation sees energy averaging at just 4c to 4.5c per kilowatt-hour, substantially lower than the 14c average for commercial electrical supply and up to half the cost of a similar oil or LPG usage.

Amongst the featured case studies that have been profiled by Gas Networks Ireland is that of the Rochestown Park Hotel on the outskirts of Cork City. As one of the early adopters of the system in this country the proprietors first installed a CHP unit during the 1990s and have recently upgraded to a more advanced version of CHP in the last two years. Since the installation of that newer system, the hotel has enjoyed savings of around €100,000. Another highlighted case is that of the Ormonde Hotel in Kilkenny, which encompasses 120 rooms and a leisure centre. The size of the hotel, its location and turnover are all example of what Gas Networks Ireland believes will be a strong selling point for adoption of the system by hotels throughout the country.

Formally using CHP for just a portion of their energy needs, McFadden says that when making a head to head comparison with traditional electric power a detailed daily profile of energy use and waste was a clear indicator of what direction to go when the hotel decided to fully transfer to CHP. “They totally refurbished and relocated the CHP unit in an encased container on the roof of their car park facility and did all the pipework from there making a link between that CHP unit and everything in the hotel”, with McFadden also detailing the availability of full service solutions from a number of CHP manufactures and installers. The current setup now sees the hotel to make savings of approximately €50,000, with the unit allowing for a two-year return on investment. Furthermore, CHP will allow the Ormonde Hotel the option of installing absorption chillers in the future, with this third dimension to the system capable of utilising chemical reactions to transform unwanted heating in summer months into an air cooling function.

For general connections at small to large enterprises that do not wish to include a CHP unit, the process is relatively simple with large connections taking around eight weeks down to as little as four to six for average an SME link. “We subsidise ourselves, we have a pricing mechanism, where only 30% of SME connection costs are generally charged to the client with the other 70% put onto our books” details McFadden who also notes that similar arrangements are often made with larger customers.

McFadden promises that regardless of connection type, Gas Networks Ireland will have a sales representative on site within one working day in order to expedite this process and once a customer makes a decision to go ahead based on the quote they receive, the process sees generally quick completion subject to local authority planning.

Two new towns have recently been added to the network with Wexford and Nenagh showing a strong uptake amongst local hospitality enterprises. In addition, Gas Networks Ireland is hosting a dedicated Combined Heat and Power Conference (half day event) in Dublin on Tuesday, 11 October. For those interested in this event or setting up a consultancy with Gas Networks Ireland, further information is available from 1850 411 511.

Colm Ryan

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Citywest Hotel

A New Chapter for Citywest Hotel …Growth, Investment and Diversification

Sean Reid is Commercial Director at Citywest Hotel, Conference & Event Centre since March 2015. Here, he discusses the current €13m investment at the venue, securing its position as Ireland’s leading event and conference site.

Sean Reid, Commercial Director

The refurbishment of the property follows its purchase by Irish owned Tetrarch Capital in 2014, who count Citywest as a flagship brand alongside a number of other high quality brands throughout the country. The investment for 2016 will see an additional 120 rooms upgraded by year end with 450 already at superior standard prior to the Tetrarch purchase, therefore bringing a total of 570 rooms to the highest standard. 2017 will see the remaining 194 rooms on the property brought to the same superior standard. The close of 2016 will also see the launch of a new restaurant to meet growing demand at Citywest, with an increase in overall turnover of 15% forecast.

Tetrarch’s launch of a specific management brand for the hospitality industry coincides with their acquisition of several existing operations in Ireland, along with the planned launch of self-catering apartment hotel properties for Dublin city centre set to open over the course of the next two years.

Reid, who joined the company a year and a half ago, points to the organisation’s corporate structure as a contribution to success in the industry. This environment allows for a “hands off” approach towards management teams at individual group hotels, one which Reid considers as being “entirely positive” and in the case of Citywest helpful towards maintaining a healthy working environment for the hotels 420 staff.

John O’Farrell, Acting General Manager

While Reid has enjoyed an extensive career within the industry, he notes the sheer size of working and managing commercial activity at Citywest as a unique challenge compared to other hotel or event spaces anywhere across the country. Not only does the venue attract an unparalleled amount of international business due to its location and facilities, this trade has a propensity towards the large event and conference market - a further distinction when compared to other locations here.

“There is 16,500 Sq. m of event space here along with 764 rooms, there’s nothing of that size in the country”, states Reid when discussing his desire to further increase trade amongst the international market by bringing major conferences to Citywest Hotel. A key factor in this goal is the ability for the hotel to offer a full service solution for such events, with attendees having the ability to take part in activities on the same site as their accommodation and dining, while being only a twenty-minute drive from the city centre. “We have rooms that you can go into that are theatre style for conferences, then downstairs rooms that can be fitted for exhibition style and catering”, with Reid pointing to the flexibility and quality of these spaces as key selling points for major conferences where such variety is highly sought after.

Damien Gaffney, Managing Director Tetrarch Hospitality

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While there are targets for growth amongst international buyers, the core of Citywest business will naturally remain focused on the domestic market with a variety of national political, sporting and

Citywest Hotel cultural events accounting for stable return business. “We see ourselves as having a very strong base within the domestic market, we have always been strong in that and will be strong in it going forward”, said Reid when asked about a future direction for the hotel, but was keen to add that Tetrarch see the securing of key international contracts as to where substantial growth lies. Currently there are an average of 400 beds sold per night at Citywest and up to 420 staff on hand to cater to demand during peak levels. Despite the ownership change, staff turnover has been quite low at the hotel, with several heads of department and operations remaining in place for over a decade, which Reid sees as strong selling point to buyers who note staff engagement and confidence in the product.

With the total investment spend of €13.5m earmarked for over period of four years, guests at the hotel are now beginning to see the changes in accommodation and public areas, with much of the initial spend being seen on modernising regulatory compliance standards. For consumers there are two new bar areas, a new reception lobby and restaurant, along with the refurbishment of 120 rooms by years’ end – which will be classed as being of ‘superior standard’ given the extent of the upgrade. Indeed, the recent rise in turnover has sometimes left only narrow windows of opportunity for such work to be carried out. Feedback from core users has also been sought out by the management team, with Reid noting the desire amongst midweek corporate clients for a consistent experience: “What we will be doing is having a dedicated corporate dining area, which will have a more corporate feel within one end of the restaurant”. Plans are also in place for a lounge area targeted at this market segment to maintain a uniform experience for them at Citywest Hotel regardless of any major events running in tandem to their stay.

Amongst the biggest changes at Citywest Hotel according to Reid has been the air of positivity since the Tetrarch takeover in contrast to the five years of receivership.

“We believe in staff and have invested in them” states Reid noting the up skilling and training that has been offered to staff in conjunction with Fáilte Ireland. On the strength of the present operation, he also points to the positive impression clients have been left with where flexibility and a desire to deliver the best possible user experience has been recognised, particularly amongst larger conference level clients. “Revenue was up over 20% bringing us north of €20m last year and we are on course to do almost 15% growth this year” expressed Reid, adding that this growth was seen due to an upturn in regular trade across the board as well as securing a number of large event contracts. However, such large contracts do have the ability to be “game changers in terms of revenue”, particularly with the ability for such a large venue like Citywest Hotel to not disrupt regular trade when doing so.

Going forward, Sean hopes to see all rooms in the hotel to be classed as being of ‘superior’ standard within the next year in order to further improve the user experience. Alongside the upgrade to the latest AV units and installation of 1GB broadband has seen the addition of several EMEA events to the venue, which previously would have not ventured to Ireland.

“In terms of numbers, fourteen months from now I see us jumping up probably another 15% with 2017 looking extremely positive so far”, proclaimed Reid noting the potential to maintain this level of growth in the future with further segmentation of the hotel across both corporate and leisure markets.

H&RT AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2016

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ballymore

key ingredients For the past twenty years Georgina and Barry O’Sullivan have operated the Ballymore Inn from rural County Kildare creating a unique ambiance and dedicated clientele. Here, Georgina details the contributing factors to that success and the work involved maintaining that reputation.

The premises has become a noteworthy destination in that time for those across North Kildare, as well as further into the commuter belt, with many customers opting to make the trip out to Ballymore as opposed to eating in the city centre. A non-traditional location for high quality dining has not proved a hindrance with strong trade and expansion of the restaurant, complimented by numerous awards as well as the launch of a cookbook entitled ‘Cooking at the Ballymore Inn’, in 2015. At a time when many establishments are looking to increase their profit margins by cutting costs, Georgina and Barry have remained consistent to their initial motivations by adhering to the same concept of quality first seen in 1996. This includes not only the sourcing of high quality produce from suppliers, but even the cultivation of their own seasonal fruit and vegetables.

“The basis initially was that we wanted to do food that we would like to eat, that we would like to buy or go out for; home produced food, good soup and good bread”, expressed Georgina when discussing the initial influences on setting up in Ballymore. Using their specific knowledge of the industry, namely Barry’s catering and management background along with her Bord Bia experience they realised that the predominant trend amongst consumers was about to become a demand for quality food throughout retail and hospitality. “We didn’t have any marketing budget, we had no PR or advertising company it just had to be based on peoples shared experience”, states Georgina when discussing early growth of the business. This approach was also mirrored in choosing Ballymore as a location due to its relatively low property costs twenty years ago.

Instead of a large-scale financial investment, it was instead the establishment of relationships with key suppliers that proved decisive in terms of early success. “I knew the meat industry very well and I wanted the same quality of product that Sainsbury’s and other retailers were getting at the time”, asserted O’Sullivan on procurement of ingredients. Twenty years ago it may have been considered unorthodox for a small restaurant down the country to seek such produce and while now commonplace throughout the industry, it was vital to the pair to avoid compromise even if it meant a higher level of expenditure.

The current extent of the operation now sees a diverse range of customers coming through the door, split between the main restaurant and the more casual dining experience that can be found at the Back Bar. While weekends may be busiest with numbers in the hundreds each day, patrons can also be expected mid week: “Part of the reason to be open everyday is people feel that they can always pop in, so we’re open until 11.30 p.m.” according Georgina, who also notes the changing attitude in family dining in recent times, with parents now more inclined to pay a visit along with their children.

In terms of other consumer trends that have emerged since the establishment of the Inn, Georgina also points to the influences of foreign cuisine, casual dining and a health conscious consumer – all of whom are ultimately seeking quality.

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ballymore

“We buy the best, we cook everything from scratch; our own dressings, we make our own sourdough” states Georgina when discussing the extent of the in house production that is undertaken each day. Indeed, O’Sullivan went to the extent of travelling to San Francisco some years back in order to perfect the craft of sourdough baking. “The guy who was running the course over there said I wouldn’t be able to adapt it because it was designed for bakeries, but I thought we could and we have what I think is a really good sourdough now”. While that level of commitment may not be within reach for every restaurateur, the building of relationships with suppliers along with the growing of vegetables may be more attainable, with the latter being directly noticed by diners, while still remaining cost effective.

On the relationship with suppliers, Georgina believes long-term business relationships cannot be underestimated. Pointing to the element of trust that can be established in this case, she notes the advantageous aspect of having regular communication regarding the quantity and standard of produce available, particularly in changeable markets such as seafood. “I’m guided by them, because you actually cultivate the people who think like you and also have a pride”, with O’Sullivan noting the particular need for this when it comes to the aspect of specialised ingredients. While the majority of produce is of course emanating from Irish shores, some international sourcing is utilised like the procurement of wine from a selection of noteworthy Italian vineyards and vegetables unavailable in Ireland – such as Maris Piper potatoes. The potatoes, along with their cooking process, have led in to the restaurant developing a considerable reputation for the classic dish of fish and chips, with Georgina adding, “we have a lot of customers that won’t eat chips anywhere else”.

While the marketing budget on day one may have been minimal, the Ballymore Inn just like the industry at large has changed to reflect the wider adoption of social media. For Georgina, a good presence on such platforms can’t be underestimated: “Social media is here to stay, and Trip Advisor is the only game in town now and we know that”, on discussing the growing influence of usergenerated reviews. While the web now may form an important part of marketing and feedback, O’Sullivan feels that the industry must also focus on standards and innovation, regardless of how positive or negative digital communications are. Accreditations received for the couple’s work now includes, amongst others, placement in the Bridgestone Guide along with a victory in the Irish Times ‘Best Casual Dining Award’ which she considers a direct result of continually putting the “product to price” relationship first.

now we have increased the refrigeration and lighting”, states Georgina detailing the success of the initial diversification – as well as the ease of setup with all of the retail products already being manufactured onsite.

With present capacity set at just fewer than two hundred across both areas of the venue, Georgina points to the necessity of maintaining quality “in what is essentially a volume based business” as being key, continuing that reputation of the past two decades which has seen the Ballymore Inn become a stand out location.

Colm Ryan

The future of the restaurant will now also include the recently opened on site deli, where customers now have the opportunity to purchase a variety of the key ingredients and seasonings that can be found throughout the menu. According to Georgina it was a natural progression given the popularity of many regular items on offer, with an area of the main restaurant now dedicated to this facility. “We just expanded into a corner of the restaurant, and

H&RT JUNE/JULY 2016

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RAI symposium

RAI Symposium

in the Shelbourne Hotel Following their 45th Annual General Meeting on June 2nd, the Restaurants Association of Ireland (RAI) held a symposium in the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin. The theme was nurturing talent and exploring trends and the speakers gave a range of perspectives on those issues.

Among those speaking were; Niall McKenna of James Street South Group in Belfast, Lars Peder Hedberg, Chairman of the Nordic Region for Worlds 50 Best Restaurants, John Mulcahy, of Failte Ireland and Helena Egan Global Director of Industry Relations in TripAdvisor.

The very newly appointed Minister of State for Tourism and Sport, Patrick O’Donovan opened the symposium emphasising that talent within the industry is responsible for catering to tourism and for the continued development of food tourism in Ireland. Minister O’Donovan pointed out that exploring trends was a key factor in strategic planning in the industry and he praised the significant role the industry had played in the turnaround of the economy.

CEO of the RAI Adrian Cummins, Minister Patrick O’Donovan, President of the RAI Anthony Gray

“Visitors want to experience food reflective of the place they are in. It’s so important to their overall unique experience of a place”, said the Minister. However, he also referred to some shortfalls within the industry and suggested that a combination of approaches is required for further development of these areas. Minister O’Donovan praised the new passport initiative in the Wild Atlantic Way and he said the middle section of the country must now be developed and he referred to Local Authorities as being a key part of that development strategy.

John Mulcahy has responsibility for policy and operations in Food Tourism, Education and Tourist Accommodation Standards in Failte Ireland. John focused on the development of a culinary apprenticeship programme and the collaboration between Failte Ireland, the RAI the Irish Hospitality Federation (IHF), the Education and Training Board of Ireland (ETBI) and others to make that happen. John said “An apprenticeship programme must be industry led. We have been waiting on this for the last 18 months but it’s important that we work with education bodies as they can provide the qualifications. What we have developed is a three-legged pot of industry, education and students, if we are missing one of these pieces we haven’t got it right”.

Lars Peder Hedberg of the Worlds 50 Best Restaurants

Alison Hodgson of HR McDonalds Group John McKenna of The McKenna Guide

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RAI symposium John explained he is hopeful that between 70 and 80 students will begin the two –year apprenticeship programme this autumn. The programme has a dual aspect of education and training with 40% of the programme classroom based and 60% in an employment position. According to John, “I believe this is a game changer in terms of addressing the shortages in the industry and in terms of education within the industry. It is a great opportunity to put culinary education front and centre”.

In terms of addressing staff shortages in the industry, the next speaker, Niall McKenna of James Street South Group, took the initiative in his home town of Belfast and developed his own apprenticeship programme. Born out of Niall’s frustration at not being able to recruit adequately trained staff for his four restaurants, Niall decided to start a training programme himself so that he could hire people with the skills he needed. “Primarily I wanted to get people to love food again and to love the quality of food so the attitude of the trainees is the key for me”.

In 2012 Niall started the apprenticeship programme with eight trainees and he hired three, two of whom are still working with him. The following year he had twelve on the programme and he employed eight and this year he will have sixteen on the programme. Niall runs the programme together with Belfast Metropolitan College but at present there is no government funding for it.

The next speaker, Helena Egan is the Global Director of Industry Relations for TripAdvisor and she gave an overview of Irish restaurants ratings on TripAdvisor and who is doing the rating. TripAdvisor lists over 4 million restaurants worldwide and has approximately 230 contributions every minute. Helena explained that the main elements that affect your restaurant’s place on TripAdvisor are quality, quantity and how new you are to the market.

In Ireland, Dax is the number one restaurant listed on TripAdvisor followed by The Mulberry Garden. Helena reminded everyone that TripAdvisor is a free platform for restaurateurs and that in order to increase your placement engagement is key. In 2016 TripAdvisor launched their certificate of excellence which Helena said is fast becoming a marker that customers are watching out for when they are reviewing restaurants online.

In terms of trends within the industry some key things stood out for this attendee, for example the conflicting trends within the sector at the moment between the trend towards healthy food but also the rise in popularity of products like alcohol infused ice-cream. The crafts drinks space is continuing to explode along with the craft soft drinks market. Alternative venues and pop-up restaurants are a trend that is sticking around as is the development of the wine list to cocktail list to specialised drinks menus for example, the Gin menu.

This symposium provided a diverse and interesting space for the industry to reflect on these trends and others as well as to review shortfalls and of course leave with some food for thought!

Malcolm Bell of Visit Cornwall

According to Niall, “Every year it costs me £50,000 to run the programme but I end up with chefs who are excited about food.

Apprentices are not cheap labour; it’s about developing people and developing chefs. The industry and colleges need to combine; it’s the only way forward”.

Lars Peder Hedberg is the Chairman of the Nordic Region for World’s 50 Best Restaurants and publisher of the White Guide.

During his presentation Lars posed the question “what makes a world class restaurant”? And his answer was, “that’s an impossible question”! This is because so many people disagree on what makes a great restaurant. Lars said that this year the biggest trend he is seeing in the culinary world is Neo-Russian cooking. “White Rabbit”, a restaurant in Moscow is the quickest riser to the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, ever, entering at number 23 this year.

One of the interesting things about the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list is that they have no criteria! However Lars says that in his opinion there are three main elements that he believes are critical to getting on this list. These are; Origin, meaning the origin of the produce used and how local it is, Forward, meaning how innovative the restaurant is in re-creating old recipes and using what has been done before in different ways and finally Beyond, meaning how does the restaurant engage with the ecology around it and the sustainability of food.

Minsiter for Transport, Tourism & Sport Shane Ross

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GMIT news

Summer Work Placement Programme

– Thank you Colleagues!

A huge thanks to all industry partners both in Ireland and overseas for your continued support of GMIT students undertaking accredited work placement programmes. Your support and leadership is a critical part of the learning experience and for this we remain so very grateful.

At the time of writing colleagues are visiting students on work placement and this visit is a very important part of the overall experience. We are so grateful to all of you who give your time and input freely and this feedback certainly influences how we do our work. Without your support this activity would be impossible to accomplish and I hope many of you see it as an opportunity to influence the next generation of hospitality and culinary professionals and maybe, through inspiring these learners, we might just keep this generation in our industry for a sustainable period of time.

Our work placement programme continues to grow and more graduate opportunities are opening up for GMIT. We are indebted to our many industry partners who work with us and indeed I am proud to share that many of these colleagues are GMIT graduates.

On a recent trip to the US I was delighted to meet up with many GMIT alumni including Terry Dunbar, GM in the Hyatt Regency in Boston. In New York I was lucky to be staying in Fitzpatrick’s Grand Central and met up with GMIT grads Shane Cookman and Patrick Leyden. Patrick is the GM at Fitzpatrick’s Grand Central and Shane is Regional Managers for Fitzpatrick’s in the USA. John Daly, Executive Director of F&B for Hotel Hershey is another GMIT grad who takes five GMIT students annually on the hotel internship programme and on a trip to Florida it was great to reconnect with Damien O’Riordan, another GMIT grad and now the GM at the Ritz Carlton in Sarasota.

We are keen to encourage students to continue learning overseas and many of you who have graduated from an Irish college will no doubt recollect your own great experiences and stories.

Colleagues often tell us how good GMIT students are doing when we visit them on work placement and our response, in general, is always the same: “we try hard every day to make a positive difference, we don’t always get it right and things do go wrong but we are constantly trying to do better and improve. We develop our curriculum in partnership with industry and other stakeholders, we expose students to real life industry experiences in GMIT as often as we can. All students on all awards in our school undertake practical experience, we strive to produce the best graduates we possibly can and based on graduate survey feedback we are doing well but will always strive to do more and do better”.

Míle buíochas, without your support and input we really couldn’t do all we do.

Vice President International Engagement Head of College Tourism & Arts Galway Mayo Institute of Technology Dublin Road Galway Email cait.noone@gmit.ie www.gmit.ie

Dean Corcoran & Sinead Flaherty-BB Bar Management on Work Placement in The Kensington Hotel,London

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Laura OKeefe, BB Event Management, on Work Placement in Hilton Head USA

Sorcha Monaghan - BB Cul. Arts and Mike Byrne , BA in Hotel Management on Work Placement in Arles, France

GMIT news

New programmes International Tourism Management and Culinary Arts approved for September 2016 GMIT will be offering three new awards in September 2016 and more are on the way for September 2017.

The new honours degree in International Tourism Management was approved by an external validation panel in early June.

Staff of the College of Tourism and Arts have a strong relationship with local and national employers, and there is much interaction at varying levels with partners. As such, engagement with employers, potential employers, industry analysts, and industry development is ongoing and growing.

As part of the programmatic review process a focus group of tourism industry stakeholders was undertaken and their feedback, along with other stakeholder feedback influenced this development which was led by co-joint programme chairs Maria Murphy and John Carty.

Students can expect to study a range of exciting and innovative modules including destination and resort management, tourism law, tourism economics, sustainable tourism management and history, heritage and culture in a tourism context.

If anyone would like more information on this new development please email Gerry O’Neill, Head of Department for Tourism and Heritage email: Gerry. oneill@gmit.ie Much discussion continues to take place around the demand for chefs in our industry and in response to the Expert Skills Group report last November GMIT has developed two new minor awards in culinary arts beginning in September 2016. Both awards will last for fifteen weeks.

Trainee chefs will study two days per week in college and spend the remainder of their time in industry and this industry based work will count towards academic credit attainment during their time on the course. More details are available for Head of Department for Culinary Arts Gerry Talbot email: Gerry.talbot@gmit.ie

GMIT La Rochelle-Bordeaux experience April 2016 Culinary Arts, Hospitality Studies, Hotel Management and Event Management students: Mariam, Brian, Mike, Isabela, Padraig, Joey, Daniel, Ashleigh, Joseph, Tommy, Caroline, Lorcan, Sarah, Frank, Sorcha, Jennifer, Michael, with Colin Gilligan, Martin Ruffley and Anne Brindley spent an amazing 5 days in France, tasting, savouring, meeting their peers, soaking up sunshine and atmosphere.

They picnicked beside Notre Dame in Paris, and had a photo op under the Eiffel Tower before taking the train to La Rochelle. There they dined in the Lycée Hôtelier de La Rochelle, spent a day with their peers from the Lycée, tasting Grand Marnier and enjoying a buffet lunch in the Château of Grand Marnier, followed by a visit to the Musée du Cognac in Cognac.

Friday, a full morning in Practicals in the Lycée, a visit of the town of La Rochelle and its amazing Aquarium. On Saturday, a 2 hour train ride to sunny Bordeaux, a guided tour of the city, and a professional wine-tasting experience in the École du Vin in the CIV Bordeaux , followed by free time and an exceptional meal experience on the foodie street of St Remi.

Sunday they visited Le Marché des Capucins, feasting their eyes on and tasting the freshest of produce before heading back from Bordeaux to Dublin late Sunday afternoon.

Tourism trip to La Rochelle

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IT Tallaght

Food Innovation showcase by BA in Culinary Arts Students Recently the BA in Culinary Arts students showcased their new product ideas to industry representatives to include Bord Bia and the Local Enterprise Board. Many products focused on niche gaps in the market in particular in the area of health and wellness. Following the showcase they then had to present their ideas in a Dragon’s Den-type scenario. The high standard of their work and creativity was complemented and many were strongly encouraged to take their product concept to the take stage of developing the product commercially for the market. We look forward to monitoring their progress. Watch this space!

Niagara College Canada New Culinary Arts & Hospitality College Partner Recently a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Niagara College, Ontario, Canada and the Institute of Technology Tallaght was signed. This is a very welcome opportunity for enhanced collaboration on our academic programmes and research areas for both staff and students particularly in the area of culinary arts and hospitality studies. Nestled in the heart of Niagara’s rich wine and culinary country, Niagara College is home to Canada’s first teaching brewery and commercial teaching winery, along with a world-renowned culinary and food innovation programme.

Culinary Nutrition -Trend Corner

• With the current demand for Plant-based foods, the trend ‘Root to Stem’ cooking for menus is on the rise. As well as reducing waste, and introducing new natural flavours, the nutrition of the dish is also enhanced.

Some examples are: • Broccoli: the florets and stalks deliver equal amounts of nutrients, protective phytochemicals ( beta carotene, carotenoids and sulforaphane), compounds which protect against certain cancers). The leaves can also be used.

• Celery leaves are a rich source of Vitamin A, and flavonoid antioxidants such as zea-xanthin, lutein and beta carotene, which have anti-oxidant, cancer preventing and immune-boosting functions.

• Beetroot tops: the greens from the beetroot are rich in carotenoids, flavonoid anti-oxidants and Vitamin A

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FOOD

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MONDAY 29TH & TUESDAY 30TH AUGUST 2016 FITZWILLIAM SQUARE DUBLIN 2

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The Taste Wins at The Gourmand Ireland’s leading online food and beverage magazine The Taste was amongst three Irish winners at the 21st Gourmand World Cookbook Awards that took place on May 29th in China. The awards honour the best global food and wine publications, printed and digital, as well as food television.

‘Sea Gastronomy’ by Michael O’Meara of Oscars Seafood Bistro, Galway won the Gourmand Award for Best Fish Cookbook in the world while ‘Chef Interrupted’ by Trevis Gleason claimed the Gourmand Prestige Award by the International Jury. Facing down competition from over 100 online publications, The Taste was named Best Digital Food Magazine in the World.

Helmed by husband and wife team Keith and Jules Mahon, The Taste is committed to showcasing the very

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best in Irish food, drink and accommodation, highlighting the innovators and adventurers within our burgeoning hospitality community. Follow TheTaste on twitter at @thetaste_ie or visit their website www.TheTaste.ie.

The RAI Oppose Increase in National Minimum Wage The recent Low Pay Commission report published on July 19th recommended a 10 cent increase in the national minimum wage to €9.25 an hour. The Restaurants Association of Ireland (RAI) have opposed the suggested changes and is calling on Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Mary Mitchell O’Connor and the Government not to accept the recommendation.

already had to absorb a 50cent wage increase this year and many SME’s and rural restaurants are struggling as a result of this. Another increase will result in job losses and business closures.”

The RAI are calling for a freeze in National Minimum Wage until hard evidence of the impact of recent minimum wage increases have been identified. A freeze in minimum wage is particularly important due to the uncertainty surrounding the implications of Brexit and tourism numbers as 40% of our visitors come from Great Britain. Mr Cummins continued, “A freeze in National Minimum Wage is needed until we can fully understand the effects the most recent wage increases have had. In light of Brexit and the uncertain economic climate we should be doing everything we can do to keep and create jobs, not put them at risk.”

The RAI believe that an increase in the minimum wage will have a disproportionate negative impact on rural restaurants and the rural economy which is yet to see signs of recovery like that of urban areas. If the recommended increases are accepted, the RAI predict restaurant closures in rural and border counties. Adrian Cummins, Chief Executive of the RAI commented, “An increase in theof minimum Restaurants Association of Ireland wage will have a negative Restaurants Association Ireland 11 Bridge Bridge Court – Citygate St. Augustine Street Dublin Registered Company No. No. 56224 56224 11 Court – Citygate St. Augustine Street -- Dublin 88 -- Registered impact for the restaurant industry.

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Search for Ireland’s Premier Foodiefor Destination Begins

THOUGHT

as a close runner up. The ‘Foodie Destinations 2016’ competition will see towns, villages, regions and communities from all over the country battle it out to be named Ireland’s top destination for a foodie experience. The Foodie Destinations 2016 winner will be a destination that actively promotes itself through joint promotional activities such as food festivals, gourmet trails or farmers’ markets as well as great dining experiences for locals and visitors alike. Communities across the country are urged to get involved and work with local businesses, foodie groups, Chambers of Commerce and other working groups to submit their applications and d Fahy, Deborah ldron, Tina O’Dwyer, Bri Wa in art -M rs nne Wi promote their area to both local people and visitors. ns Last Years Foodie Tow from The Burren han nag Mo nal Do T h e Applications are being accepted until Thursday 11th Evers and Restaurants Association of Ireland August 2016. For further information, please contact has launched their search for Ireland’s top ‘Foodie the Restaurants Association of Ireland on 01 677 9901, Destinations 2016’. Foodie Destinations, formerly follow us on Twitter @FoodieDest or visit our website known as Foodie Towns, celebrates Ireland’s unique www.foodiedestinations.ie. and wonderful food offerings and encourages local food tourism initiatives across the country. Last year, The Burren in Co. Clare was crowned as Ireland’s Premier Foodie Destination with Derry being named

Brexit Huge Blow to Irish Tourism The Restaurants Association of Ireland (RAI) has expressed disappointment and concern following the outcome of the June UK referendum to leave the European Union. The RAI believe that the vote has major implications for Irish Tourism and the Restaurant Sector, and have therefore called for a clear strategy on how Ireland is to deal with Brexit and minimise damage to Irish tourism. The Irish Tourism industry is highly Restaurants Association of Ireland

dependent on the British Market as over 3 million visit Ireland from the UK each year. Restaurateurs in border areas have also expressed their concerns due to potential new border arrangements post-Brexit.

Following the UK vote decision, the RAI have called for the retention of the 9% vat rate for tourism to help the industry endure and overcome Brexit.

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food trends

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- eating like our grandfathers Julien Poisot – head chef at the famous Relais-&-Château branded Château de Mercuès in central France – told me in an interview two years ago that there was a current trend in France back towards some of the more traditional dishes and cuts of meat. There was, he said, a small but noticeable tendency amongst the eating public to try once more the kinds of food that their grandparents were brought up on. More and more people were asking for some of the “less noble” cuts of meat, he said, as well as looking for some of the dishes that had fallen out of popularity, such as frogs’ legs or snails.

Here in Ireland, our national palates have also been going through some changes. As our society evolves, so too do our tastes and preferences when we go out to eat. The cultural shuddering we got from the dramatic boom-bust experience over the last decade has left a lasting impression on our appetites. There has been a shying away from the bold and brash that was so readily embraced during the boom and a return to something more familiar and more reliable ever since; a seeking out of the source, as it were, of our identity and inspiration.

H&RT AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2016

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food trends Have we too been looking for the food our grandfathers used to eat?

Have we finally begun to embrace with open arms the food of the sea that we have, for so long, treated with (relative) derision? Some of the country’s top chefs share their views on the matter.

“The trends these days are a bit of a mish-mash,” says Derry Clarke of L’Ecrivain. “There are so many ingredients that we never had native to us… Yet in saying that, I think that people want to go back to food that we know. I often see it now where restaurants are doing the old dishes.”

“People seem to want more comfort food,” says Wade Murphy of 1826 Adare restaurant. ”It’s not necessarily going back in time. I think that, if anything, Irish tastes and palates have increased in range and complexity immensely, even since I started cooking as a young lad.”

For Noel McMeel of the Lough Erne Golf Resort and Hotel, he’s a big believer in “modern Irish food”, something that he says many people don’t believe exists. For him, the modern Irish cuisine revolves around going back to simplicity and making the most of flavours that are in season, just like “our grandmothers would have done”.

“The big change for me was about great food and making it taste amazing. This is where young chefs eventually learn – you have to learn the history before you can learn the future.”

“I do think that Irish people have become more aware of animal husbandry and how animals are treated”, says Murphy. “I firmly believe that if we kill an animal, we owe that animal a respect to use every bit of it that we possibly can… I think that more and more people are thinking the same way… I do think that people are reverting back to that and once it’s cooked properly and treated properly, then people realise that they are lovely pieces of meat and really tasty and full of flavour.”

While there is some tendency towards the less noble cuts of meat, a lot of is concentrated on the cheek, with a much lesser appetite for the ignoble innards, it seems.

“What I think is happening in the last 20 years is that this young generation of diners don’t really eat offal,” says Clarke. “The reason is that they’re so much better off; that they don’t have to. The cow’s cheek is quite common now, though – the daub of beef. It’s kind-of ‘in’ at the moment.”

“I serve a lot of beef cheek and I always have done,” says Murphy. “Things like beef cheek and pork belly… we’ve always done that from Day One.” What about the ultimate grandfather’s dish of pig’s head?

“I have that on the menu,” says Murphy. “It’s been on the menu since the day we opened, although we’ve tweaked and changed it since. One of them is a head-to-tail pork tasting plate where we use the loin, the belly, black pudding and a cheek croquette (made from braised pig’s head).”

Seafood is another story. While there seems to be plenty of talk of an increase in the popularity of seafood in Ireland, is this truly being reflected in what people are eating? Is there enough seafood on our plates?

“I think definitely not,” says Noel. “That has a lot to do with skills now.

There are too many operators out there that are supplying it in frozen and I think that we need to go back to buying as much fresh and put more skill into it by being able to do such simple things as skinning a fish… there are better chefs and better restaurants out there that are serving fresher food and we just have to support them.”

“People in the restaurant are always asking for ‘prime fish’,” says Clarke, “but I always tell them that the prime fish is the freshest fish… the best fish of all is mackerel yet for whatever reason – probably because it’s so cheap – people don’t give it the regard it deserves… I often think that if the price of mackerel suddenly went up to €55 a kilo overnight, then people would be ordering loads of it.”

“Whenever I get fresh mackerel, I always put it on the menu,” says Murphy. “Sometimes, it can absolutely fly out the door and other times, it won’t go at all. It’s a funny one.

“I think that there should be more seafood on our menus, generally speaking. Unfortunately, I think that a lot of people in Ireland still see it as

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a penance food – as something we were made eat on Fridays. But back then, we were eating badly cooked fish. Our fish and seafood is up there with the best in the world.”

Perhaps there’s an element of snobbery in all of this. Are the so-called prime cuts that much better or is it a case of wanting to show the world that you can afford the more expensive cuts or simply feeling better about yourself by ordering what everyone else regards as the best?

“I don’t know if it’s a certain snobbishness,” says Murphy. “I don’t think so; people’s attitude has definitely changed. I think now, with the abundance of restaurants, people are going out to eat food that they want to eat and not to eat food that they’re told how to eat.”

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Croke Park Business established in 1962

ballymore

key ingredients For the past twenty years Georgina and Barry O’Sullivan have operated the Ballymore Inn from rural County Kildare creating a unique ambiance and dedicated clientele. Here, Georgina details the contributing factors to that success and the work involved maintaining that reputation.

The premises has become a noteworthy destination in that time for those across North Kildare, as well as further into the commuter belt, with many customers opting to make the trip out to Ballymore as opposed to eating in the city centre. A non-traditional location for high quality dining has not proved a hindrance with strong trade and expansion of the restaurant, complimented by numerous awards as well as the launch of a cookbook entitled ‘Cooking at the Ballymore Inn’, in 2015. At a time when many establishments are looking to increase their profit margins by cutting costs, Georgina and Barry have remained consistent to their initial motivations by adhering to the same concept of quality first seen in 1996. This includes not only the sourcing of high quality produce from suppliers, but even the cultivation of their own seasonal fruit and vegetables.

“The basis initially was that we wanted to do food that we would like to eat, that we would like to buy or go out for; home produced food, good soup and good bread”, expressed Georgina when discussing the initial influences on setting up in Ballymore. Using their specific knowledge of the industry, namely Barry’s catering and management background along with her Bord Bia experience they realised that the predominant trend amongst consumers was about to become a demand for quality food throughout retail and hospitality. “We didn’t have any marketing budget, we had no PR or advertising company it just had to be based on peoples shared experience”, states Georgina when discussing early growth of the business. This approach was also mirrored in choosing Ballymore as a location due to its relatively low property costs twenty years ago.

Instead of a large-scale financial investment, it was instead the establishment of relationships with key suppliers that proved decisive in terms of early success. “I knew the meat industry very well and I wanted the same quality of product that Sainsbury’s and other retailers were getting at the time”, asserted O’Sullivan on procurement of ingredients. Twenty years ago it may have been considered unorthodox for a small restaurant down the country to seek such produce and while now commonplace throughout the industry, it was vital to the pair to avoid compromise even if it meant a higher level of expenditure.

The current extent of the operation now sees a diverse range of customers coming through the door, split between the main restaurant and the more casual dining experience that can be found at the Back Bar. While weekends may be busiest with numbers in the hundreds each day, patrons can also be expected mid week: “Part of the reason to be open everyday is people feel that they can always pop in, so we’re open until 11.30 p.m.” according Georgina, who also notes the changing attitude in family dining in recent times, with parents now more inclined to pay a visit along with their children.

In terms of other consumer trends that have emerged since the establishment of the Inn, Georgina also points to the influences of foreign cuisine, casual dining and a health conscious consumer – all of whom are ultimately seeking quality.

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ballymore

“We buy the best, we cook everything from scratch; our own dressings, we make our own sourdough” states Georgina when discussing the extent of the in house production that is undertaken each day. Indeed, O’Sullivan went to the extent of travelling to San Francisco some years back in order to perfect the craft of sourdough baking. “The guy who was running the course over there said I wouldn’t be able to adapt it because it was designed for bakeries, but I thought we could and we have what I think is a really good sourdough now”. While that level of commitment may not be within reach for every restaurateur, the building of relationships with suppliers along with the growing of vegetables may be more attainable, with the latter being directly noticed by diners, while still remaining cost effective.

On the relationship with suppliers, Georgina believes long-term business relationships cannot be underestimated. Pointing to the element of trust that can be established in this case, she notes the advantageous aspect of having regular communication regarding the quantity and standard of produce available, particularly in changeable markets such as seafood. “I’m guided by them, because you actually cultivate the people who think like you and also have a pride”, with O’Sullivan noting the particular need for this when it comes to the aspect of specialised ingredients. While the majority of produce is of course emanating from Irish shores, some international sourcing is utilised like the procurement of wine from a selection of noteworthy Italian vineyards and vegetables unavailable in Ireland – such as Maris Piper potatoes. The potatoes, along with their cooking process, have led in to the restaurant developing a considerable reputation for the classic dish of fish and chips, with Georgina adding, “we have a lot of customers that won’t eat chips anywhere else”.

While the marketing budget on day one may have been minimal, the Ballymore Inn just like the industry at large has changed to reflect the wider adoption of social media. For Georgina, a good presence on such platforms can’t be underestimated: “Social media is here to stay, and Trip Advisor is the only game in town now and we know that”, on discussing the growing influence of usergenerated reviews. While the web now may form an important part of marketing and feedback, O’Sullivan feels that the industry must also focus on standards and innovation, regardless of how positive or negative digital communications are. Accreditations received for the couple’s work now includes, amongst others, placement in the Bridgestone Guide along with a victory in the Irish Times ‘Best Casual Dining Award’ which she considers a direct result of continually putting the “product to price” relationship first.

now we have increased the refrigeration and lighting”, states Georgina detailing the success of the initial diversification – as well as the ease of setup with all of the retail products already being manufactured onsite.

With present capacity set at just fewer than two hundred across both areas of the venue, Georgina points to the necessity of maintaining quality “in what is essentially a volume based business” as being key, continuing that reputation of the past two decades which has seen the Ballymore Inn become a stand out location.

Colm Ryan

The future of the restaurant will now also include the recently opened on site deli, where customers now have the opportunity to purchase a variety of the key ingredients and seasonings that can be found throughout the menu. According to Georgina it was a natural progression given the popularity of many regular items on offer, with an area of the main restaurant now dedicated to this facility. “We just expanded into a corner of the restaurant, and

H&RT JUNE/JULY 2016

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Bookassist

How Do Your Guests Feel?

Owning And Managing The Customer Relationship

By Des O’Mahony

Hotrec (hotrec.eu), the umbrella association of hotels, restaurants and cafés in Europe, released a telling report in mid July on the changing distribution trends in hotels. The survey was conducted between February and April 2016 and relates to the year 2015. In total 2210 hotels from 25 European Countries participated in the survey which was led by the Tourism Institut of the University of Applied Sciences, Western Switzerland.

Figure 1 shows one element of the results, and further information is available on the Hotrec website. Direct business (website, email, phone, walk-in all combined) in the surveyed hotels contracted from 59% in 2013 to 55% in 2015, the OTAs predictably benefitting mostly from that change. To read this as-is, it shows a worrying decline in the most profitable element of hotels’ distribution. However, there are positives to be gleaned and lessons to be learned that can help you capitalise on this as an opportunity.

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Customer Relationship Ownership

To state the obvious, hospitality is first and foremost about the guest, or more specifically the guest experience. A key element that is apparently being eroded in hotels is customer relationship ownership in the sense of real end-to-end communication and interaction with the guest on the entire customer journey.

Managing the customer relationship isn’t just about what happens when the guest is within your four walls - hotels by and large are doing a great job here and are being independently policed/challenged by public review sites that give voice to every guests’ opinion. However, the clamour for ratings improvement has perhaps focused hotels too much on considering the guest relationship in too narrow terms as being the in-house relationship only. There’s far more to it.

Being able to reach out to the customer during their decision-making process, communicating prior to arrival, and following up post stay are all not just important elements of customer experience of your brand but are increasingly critical ones that are directly influencing your profitability. Often, the correct handling of these elements

Bookassist of the customer relationship make the difference between your hotel being considered as just lodging rather than as an experience. Lodging is interchangeable, but a fulsome and positive experience not only increases the potential for repeat direct business at lower acquisition cost, but it also creates brand ambassadors who recommend you to others and improve your reputation and ratings, helping deliver more direct custom.

It’s Not About Rates

Influencing how your guests really feel about the whole customer journey is therefore very important. The problem inherent in the Hotrec data with growth in OTA-led distribution is that while the OTAs deliver revenue (albeit at a high acquisition cost), a larger and larger portion of the experience of the customer journey for the OTA-delivered guest is actually with the OTA, not the hotel. The ability for the guest to assess good quality information during decision making, the confidence that quoted rates are good and fair, the ease of booking, the sense of security and confidence in the booking, the pre-stay information communication, the post-stay enquiry and follow up, the longer term poststay relationship communication – all of those elements are being managed superbly by OTAs, to your hotel’s detriment. The stay at your hotel in the middle of all this is but the lodging element of the overall experience that your OTAdelivered guest is feeling, experiencing and remembering. When they come to booking again, the ease of interaction with the OTA may well dominate over the experience your hotel may have delivered.

Given that rates are essentially on parity or not far from it one way or another, and that hotels have little excuse today in not being able to provide good quality information online on their own websites, it is arguable that the main reason that OTAs are eroding direct business is through their superior leveraging of guest communication and the customer relationship ownership.

The common threads to successful and sustainable direct business? - ensuring your website is fast and modern, mobile ready and designed to deliver real and current information; advertising on your brand during search and knowing your target segments; controlling your rates and showing clear value and preferential treatment/experience over OTAs for guests who book directly; making the booking choice simple with less options and more clarity, and using high-conversion booking technology; communicating with your guest with pre and post stay emails and tailoring/customising your communication to their specific needs; avoiding participation in below-parity discount selling via OTA so-called private clubs which cheapen your brand and encourage customers to remain on the OTA rather than visiting your site. All of these practices are proven to enhance direct business, and yet the majority of hotels are not investing sufficiently in these areas by a long shot and, through inaction, are sleep-walking into losing the battle for customer relationship ownership.

Customer Communication Management

Ensuring good email communication pre and post stay is at least one element that can be tackled without breaking the bank and can be monitored and analysed to assess success.

For example, Bookassist has recently partnered with the Czech web and marketing firm Virtual Zoom to develop a co-branded product called zoom-letter designed specifically to help independent hotels manage their customer communication at a higher level and in a cost-effective manner (see zoom-letter.com).

Integrated with the hotel property management system, zoom-letter databases all of your customer information into one cloud-based system and allows you to manage guest communication professionally and effectively. Pre-stay emails are professionally designed and can deliver targeted information to help your guest on their journey, and to also give you upsell opportunity. You can gather key information needed prior to check-in via pre-stay communication and help make the arrival experience at the reception desk seamless and more welcoming. You can communicate tailored offerings regarding in-house services pre and during stay automatically to help improve F&B and facilities revenue while assisting your guests. And you can follow up with automated personalised birthday wishes, news and future offers on an ongoing basis, filtered and focused depending on your guests’ recorded preferences.

Critically, it allows communication with all your guests, not just direct ones, and therefore gives you a real opportunity to upsell to indirect guests before their arrival and to convert indirect guests to the direct route for future stays.

Bottom Line

Leveraging Direct

Returning to the Hotrec survey, the first thing to note is that 55% of business accessible directly is a significant portion that the average hotel is managing to reach, despite the fact that many hotels are not yet optimised to fully embrace/ target direct business. The key therefore is to capitalise on this majority portion right now and work without delay to find ways to grow it rather than allow it erode further.

For approaches to this, we can look at best practice in the industry and also look at how OTAs have secured their positioning. We should take note of and learn from the major moves by the big hotel brands to address the imbalance between direct and OTA-driven business, as recently summarised online by Skift (https://skift.com/2016/08/02/this-is-how-hotels-could-win-the-directbooking-wars/).

This kind of end-to-end communication is one integral part of differentiating between your hotel being considered “lodging” rather than an “experience” for the guest. Often, the specifics of what you are communicating are not as important in the longer term as how the process positions the experience of your brand in the mind of the guest.

Making your guests feel important and relevant through appropriate communication is a win-win for both sides. As Maya Angelou famously said, “At the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.”

Dr Des O’Mahony is CEO and Founder at Bookassist (www.bookassist.com), the multi-award-winning technology and digital strategy partner for hotels worldwide, and is a HSMAI “Top 20 Extraordinary Minds” recipient.

H&RT AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2016

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Citywest Hotel

A New Chapter for Citywest Hotel …Growth, Investment and Diversification

Sean Reid is Commercial Director at Citywest Hotel, Conference & Event Centre since March 2015. Here, he discusses the current €13m investment at the venue, securing its position as Ireland’s leading event and conference site.

Sean Reid, Commercial Director

The refurbishment of the property follows its purchase by Irish owned Tetrarch Capital in 2014, who count Citywest as a flagship brand alongside a number of other high quality brands throughout the country. The investment for 2016 will see an additional 120 rooms upgraded by year end with 450 already at superior standard prior to the Tetrarch purchase, therefore bringing a total of 570 rooms to the highest standard. 2017 will see the remaining 194 rooms on the property brought to the same superior standard. The close of 2016 will also see the launch of a new restaurant to meet growing demand at Citywest, with an increase in overall turnover of 15% forecast.

Tetrarch’s launch of a specific management brand for the hospitality industry coincides with their acquisition of several existing operations in Ireland, along with the planned launch of self-catering apartment hotel properties for Dublin city centre set to open over the course of the next two years.

Reid, who joined the company a year and a half ago, points to the organisation’s corporate structure as a contribution to success in the industry. This environment allows for a “hands off” approach towards management teams at individual group hotels, one which Reid considers as being “entirely positive” and in the case of Citywest helpful towards maintaining a healthy working environment for the hotels 420 staff.

John O’Farrell, Acting General Manager

While Reid has enjoyed an extensive career within the industry, he notes the sheer size of working and managing commercial activity at Citywest as a unique challenge compared to other hotel or event spaces anywhere across the country. Not only does the venue attract an unparalleled amount of international business due to its location and facilities, this trade has a propensity towards the large event and conference market - a further distinction when compared to other locations here.

“There is 16,500 Sq. m of event space here along with 764 rooms, there’s nothing of that size in the country”, states Reid when discussing his desire to further increase trade amongst the international market by bringing major conferences to Citywest Hotel. A key factor in this goal is the ability for the hotel to offer a full service solution for such events, with attendees having the ability to take part in activities on the same site as their accommodation and dining, while being only a twenty-minute drive from the city centre. “We have rooms that you can go into that are theatre style for conferences, then downstairs rooms that can be fitted for exhibition style and catering”, with Reid pointing to the flexibility and quality of these spaces as key selling points for major conferences where such variety is highly sought after.

Damien Gaffney, Managing Director Tetrarch Hospitality

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While there are targets for growth amongst international buyers, the core of Citywest business will naturally remain focused on the domestic market with a variety of national political, sporting and

Citywest Hotel cultural events accounting for stable return business. “We see ourselves as having a very strong base within the domestic market, we have always been strong in that and will be strong in it going forward”, said Reid when asked about a future direction for the hotel, but was keen to add that Tetrarch see the securing of key international contracts as to where substantial growth lies. Currently there are an average of 400 beds sold per night at Citywest and up to 420 staff on hand to cater to demand during peak levels. Despite the ownership change, staff turnover has been quite low at the hotel, with several heads of department and operations remaining in place for over a decade, which Reid sees as strong selling point to buyers who note staff engagement and confidence in the product.

With the total investment spend of €13.5m earmarked for over period of four years, guests at the hotel are now beginning to see the changes in accommodation and public areas, with much of the initial spend being seen on modernising regulatory compliance standards. For consumers there are two new bar areas, a new reception lobby and restaurant, along with the refurbishment of 120 rooms by years’ end – which will be classed as being of ‘superior standard’ given the extent of the upgrade. Indeed, the recent rise in turnover has sometimes left only narrow windows of opportunity for such work to be carried out. Feedback from core users has also been sought out by the management team, with Reid noting the desire amongst midweek corporate clients for a consistent experience: “What we will be doing is having a dedicated corporate dining area, which will have a more corporate feel within one end of the restaurant”. Plans are also in place for a lounge area targeted at this market segment to maintain a uniform experience for them at Citywest Hotel regardless of any major events running in tandem to their stay.

Amongst the biggest changes at Citywest Hotel according to Reid has been the air of positivity since the Tetrarch takeover in contrast to the five years of receivership.

“We believe in staff and have invested in them” states Reid noting the up skilling and training that has been offered to staff in conjunction with Fáilte Ireland. On the strength of the present operation, he also points to the positive impression clients have been left with where flexibility and a desire to deliver the best possible user experience has been recognised, particularly amongst larger conference level clients. “Revenue was up over 20% bringing us north of €20m last year and we are on course to do almost 15% growth this year” expressed Reid, adding that this growth was seen due to an upturn in regular trade across the board as well as securing a number of large event contracts. However, such large contracts do have the ability to be “game changers in terms of revenue”, particularly with the ability for such a large venue like Citywest Hotel to not disrupt regular trade when doing so.

Going forward, Sean hopes to see all rooms in the hotel to be classed as being of ‘superior’ standard within the next year in order to further improve the user experience. Alongside the upgrade to the latest AV units and installation of 1GB broadband has seen the addition of several EMEA events to the venue, which previously would have not ventured to Ireland.

“In terms of numbers, fourteen months from now I see us jumping up probably another 15% with 2017 looking extremely positive so far”, proclaimed Reid noting the potential to maintain this level of growth in the future with further segmentation of the hotel across both corporate and leisure markets.

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dobiquity Dobiquity aims to transform hospitality operations A novel Irish venture, Dobiquity (www.dobiquity.com), is revolutionising daily life in hospitality by helping operators to digitise multiple operational activities from a single platform

Sample Dobiquity Apps

Revolutionises the ongoing management of on-the-job training in hospitality by removing all paperwork and ensuring regulatory compliance etc.

Allows operators to self-manage the mystery shopper process generating big savings, whilst still providing a high quality assessment of the customer experience.

Streamlines how operators measure employee satisfaction and engagement levels using an online survey tool.

Digitises the customer feedback process so that hospitality operators can gather feedback from customers whilst onsite or post-visit.

Allows HR Managers to digitally gather feedback from training course participants.

Amongst the many challenges facing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in hospitality, two of the most pressing are the need to ‘do more (with less)’ so as to better compete, and to ‘know more’ about the business in order to make smarter decisions. Successfully navigating these twin challenges is a key success factor for any SME operator.

Challenge #1 - Do more (with less)

Few managers would disagree that the only way to do more with less is by increasing operational efficiency. Despite this, any objective analysis of daily hospitality operations shows that inefficiency is more prevalent in SMEs than we’d like to admit; managers frequently complain they are drowning in paperwork and weighed down by outdated manual processes. Take a vital activity like on-the-job training as one example. Given its importance, you might imagine that this critical function has evolved with the times, but it hasn’t: in most hospitality SMEs, if structured on-the-job training happens at all, it most likely still entails reams of paper - from checklists and plans to dust-coated SOP manuals.

And that’s just one example of an important operational activity that lacks efficiency, there are many others.

Challenge #2 - Know more

No enterprise – and especially SMEs – can thrive without data: about how the business is performing, about what customers and employees really think and about how internal results benchmark externally. Again, few dispute this, but real life shows that beyond the financial arena, most hospitality SMEs lack the breadth of data to holistically answer the question ‘How are we doing?’

There’s a tech lag in Hospitality

“A failure to master these combined challenges is holding many hospitality SMEs back,” explains Enda Larkin, an experienced hotel manager and hospitality consultant. “Digitisation – using apps and other cloud-based solutions within the operation - is a proven solution here, but digitisation rates in hospitality lag far behind comparable sectors which means a sizeable opportunity is being lost.”

To analyse the factors behind this tech lag, Larkin conducted research with 100 Irish & UK hospitality SME managers to gauge attitudes to digitisation. On a positive note, many respondents indicated that they had already embraced cloud solutions to manage the interface between their business and the customer; digital technology had helped them to get closer to customers all along the experience journey. On the downside, when it came to using digital solutions internally to drive operational efficiency the majority had failed to do anything significant. Still, 80% said they would like to digitise more activities so what was stopping them? Five factors emerged as key barriers to digitisation at an operational level and are presented here in reverse order of importance: # 5. ‘Technophobia’ – A general lack of comfort with technology was a barrier cited by many. # 4. Implementation Logistics – A significant number felt that introducing technology would actually add to the workload because they’d have to manage the system, train others, monitor activity etc. # 3. Cost Implications – A frequent concern expressed was that SMEs were just too ‘small’ to benefit from digitisation given the associated costs. # 2. Security Concerns – Data/service loss was listed as a significant inhibitor to embracing cloud solutions. # 1. Multiple Sign-Ups - The greatest barrier identified was the fact that to digitise many operational activities meant signing up with multiple providers which was cumbersome.

Larkin adds, “I wasn’t surprised by these findings as I’d already seen them at play when working with SMEs. But I did spot an opportunity to help hospitality SME operators capitalise on the potential benefits from digitisation and that’s why I established Dobiquity in 2015.” Dobiquity (www.dobiquity.com) is a unique software service that helps hospitality operators to save time and money, work smarter and make better decisions by digitising multiple operational activities from the same platform - everything from quality management tasks to customer engagement to training, plus many more. “Dobiquity makes it easy and affordable for operators to ‘do more digitally’ and in a nutshell we offer two things to our subscribers,” says Larkin, “Apps and Analytics.”

Apps that help businesses to do more with less

Already, Dobiquity has developed five apps (see above) with many more in the pipeline. These easy to integrate products deliver immediate cost savings and efficiency gains for the business.

Analytics that help operators to know more about their business

But the apps are only half the Dobiquity story. Once integrated, they auto-generate significant analytics that allow managers to continuously review performance and make better decisions. Soon Dobiquity will create industry-wide benchmarking tools that allow individual hospitality operators to compare their key results against peers and industry norms.

Commenting on the growth of Dobiquity to date, Larkin says, “We’ve been astounded by the interest in our products and already we have subscribers ranging from 5* to 3* hotels, restaurants, pubs, golf clubs and business centres, both here in Ireland and UK, so there’s clearly a demand for our offering. Enterprise Ireland have recently invested in us and we’ve just secured significant private sector funding that will allow us to scale up more quickly, so watch this space!”

To find out more about how Dobiquity can help you to improve your hospitality business, visit www.dobiquity.com and register for your 15-day, no obligation free trial; alternatively, for more information, email info@dobiquity.com or ring + 353 (0) 1 6392965.

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visualisation

Food Photography Julia Dunin

Over the last five years’ food photography has gained serious momentum becoming a key part of advertising and branding in the food industry. It is considered the first taste for a potential customer with more and more media producers seeking high quality food photography to accompany food related articles, features and website branding.

Julia Dunin is at the forefront of the food photography movement. Having moved to Galway five years ago she discovered that many of Galway’s restaurants and hotels were lacking imagery to present their food. She began photographing food at different hotels and restaurants, with one of her earlier clients receiving a Michelin Star shortly after. Julia began to emphasise the importance of food photography to potential clients and quickly became associated with many high profile hotels and restaurants across Ireland and the EU. According to Julia, “The visual aspect of food is a big thing now. Everything is online, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.”

Businesses are constantly looking for new and creative ways to promote their food and quick snaps on a smart phone are inadequate for today’s industry. “When people want to eat out they go online.” says Julia. High resolution shots with lighting and décor all play a very important part. Julia ascertains that food photography goes hand in hand with branding. “The photograph must reflect and compliment the style and atmosphere of the business as much as the picture of food... A bad quality food shot will do a disservice to the business as the food looks unappealing and no sense of the restaurant is conveyed which will ultimately fail to attract new customers. Also, journalists are much more likely to feature a high resolution image”.

Julia is self-taught and has her own unique and creative approach, lighting and props are an important part of the process. The use of light and shadows help to create certain moods. A bright picture creates a fresh look for light lunch or

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visualisation

fresh salad images. A warmer, more romantic lighting invites the viewer into an evening, dinner setting. Julia uses sets and props relevant to each premises to give a sense of the place she is photographing, keeping with the theme of the entire business personality and brand.

A big part of Julia’s own style is her use of stark and vivid colours which bring the food alive in the photograph.

the pictures. “There is a lot of heart and soul in food preparation and food produce. Working with food producers you get to incorporate this emotion and passion in a different way.” This is equally as challenging and in vast contrast with some of the five star hotels and Michelin restaurants where elegance, simplicity and attention to detail is the epitome of showing the food quality at its best.

A great perk of the job is getting to taste a wide variety of different foods but it’s not all fun and games. “Food photography can be very challenging, timing is key and you really need to get your lighting and set right before you capture the plate as you only have a very short window to photograph the food before it starts to lose its appeal.”

Julia emphasises. To show the food at its best so that it looks mouthwatering in the picture the photograph needs to be captured within five to fifteen minutes of the food being plated, which can be tough if you don’t manage your time and work well under pressure.

New trends in food photography focus on a clean and fresh look.

According to Julia this new look is very minimalistic and Nordic.

“Previously the look was rustic, with wooden spoons as props but a lot of businesses are moving away from this now.” As food photography is still very much a growing industry there are many new styles and approaches to be discovered. “What lies ahead in future trends of food photography is hard to predict but it is very exciting.” Instagram is one medium to keep an eye on. It’s focus on imagery has given many food producers and premises a platform to display recipes, dishes and food products to a very large audience.

Traditionally food photography has been employed by high profile restaurants and hotels but it has quickly branched out to include food producers and food marketers looking to market their brand visually.

It is a different type of food photography and can be freer. Julia also works with portrait photography and really enjoys capturing the emotional side of food by including the food producers themselves in

If you are interested in seeing some of Julia’s work you can view her portfolio here. www.foodphotographer.ie www.facebook.com/FoodPhotographerJuliaDunin www.juliadunin.com

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food trends

Food trends

- eating like our grandfathers Julien Poisot – head chef at the famous Relais-&-Château branded Château de Mercuès in central France – told me in an interview two years ago that there was a current trend in France back towards some of the more traditional dishes and cuts of meat. There was, he said, a small but noticeable tendency amongst the eating public to try once more the kinds of food that their grandparents were brought up on. More and more people were asking for some of the “less noble” cuts of meat, he said, as well as looking for some of the dishes that had fallen out of popularity, such as frogs’ legs or snails.

Here in Ireland, our national palates have also been going through some changes. As our society evolves, so too do our tastes and preferences when we go out to eat. The cultural shuddering we got from the dramatic boom-bust experience over the last decade has left a lasting impression on our appetites. There has been a shying away from the bold and brash that was so readily embraced during the boom and a return to something more familiar and more reliable ever since; a seeking out of the source, as it were, of our identity and inspiration.

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food trends Have we too been looking for the food our grandfathers used to eat?

Have we finally begun to embrace with open arms the food of the sea that we have, for so long, treated with (relative) derision? Some of the country’s top chefs share their views on the matter.

“The trends these days are a bit of a mish-mash,” says Derry Clarke of L’Ecrivain. “There are so many ingredients that we never had native to us… Yet in saying that, I think that people want to go back to food that we know. I often see it now where restaurants are doing the old dishes.”

“People seem to want more comfort food,” says Wade Murphy of 1826 Adare restaurant. ”It’s not necessarily going back in time. I think that, if anything, Irish tastes and palates have increased in range and complexity immensely, even since I started cooking as a young lad.”

For Noel McMeel of the Lough Erne Golf Resort and Hotel, he’s a big believer in “modern Irish food”, something that he says many people don’t believe exists. For him, the modern Irish cuisine revolves around going back to simplicity and making the most of flavours that are in season, just like “our grandmothers would have done”.

“The big change for me was about great food and making it taste amazing. This is where young chefs eventually learn – you have to learn the history before you can learn the future.”

“I do think that Irish people have become more aware of animal husbandry and how animals are treated”, says Murphy. “I firmly believe that if we kill an animal, we owe that animal a respect to use every bit of it that we possibly can… I think that more and more people are thinking the same way… I do think that people are reverting back to that and once it’s cooked properly and treated properly, then people realise that they are lovely pieces of meat and really tasty and full of flavour.”

While there is some tendency towards the less noble cuts of meat, a lot of is concentrated on the cheek, with a much lesser appetite for the ignoble innards, it seems.

“What I think is happening in the last 20 years is that this young generation of diners don’t really eat offal,” says Clarke. “The reason is that they’re so much better off; that they don’t have to. The cow’s cheek is quite common now, though – the daub of beef. It’s kind-of ‘in’ at the moment.”

“I serve a lot of beef cheek and I always have done,” says Murphy. “Things like beef cheek and pork belly… we’ve always done that from Day One.” What about the ultimate grandfather’s dish of pig’s head?

“I have that on the menu,” says Murphy. “It’s been on the menu since the day we opened, although we’ve tweaked and changed it since. One of them is a head-to-tail pork tasting plate where we use the loin, the belly, black pudding and a cheek croquette (made from braised pig’s head).”

Seafood is another story. While there seems to be plenty of talk of an increase in the popularity of seafood in Ireland, is this truly being reflected in what people are eating? Is there enough seafood on our plates?

“I think definitely not,” says Noel. “That has a lot to do with skills now.

There are too many operators out there that are supplying it in frozen and I think that we need to go back to buying as much fresh and put more skill into it by being able to do such simple things as skinning a fish… there are better chefs and better restaurants out there that are serving fresher food and we just have to support them.”

“People in the restaurant are always asking for ‘prime fish’,” says Clarke, “but I always tell them that the prime fish is the freshest fish… the best fish of all is mackerel yet for whatever reason – probably because it’s so cheap – people don’t give it the regard it deserves… I often think that if the price of mackerel suddenly went up to €55 a kilo overnight, then people would be ordering loads of it.”

“Whenever I get fresh mackerel, I always put it on the menu,” says Murphy. “Sometimes, it can absolutely fly out the door and other times, it won’t go at all. It’s a funny one.

“I think that there should be more seafood on our menus, generally speaking. Unfortunately, I think that a lot of people in Ireland still see it as

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a penance food – as something we were made eat on Fridays. But back then, we were eating badly cooked fish. Our fish and seafood is up there with the best in the world.”

Perhaps there’s an element of snobbery in all of this. Are the so-called prime cuts that much better or is it a case of wanting to show the world that you can afford the more expensive cuts or simply feeling better about yourself by ordering what everyone else regards as the best?

“I don’t know if it’s a certain snobbishness,” says Murphy. “I don’t think so; people’s attitude has definitely changed. I think now, with the abundance of restaurants, people are going out to eat food that they want to eat and not to eat food that they’re told how to eat.”

Hospitality Sector Must Harness Potential for Savings Switching to gas and using Combined Heat and Power Units offers credible benefits

In his role as Commercial Connections Manager for Gas Networks Ireland Fran McFadden details the advantages available in switching to natural gas for the hospitality and catering sectors.

At a time when the gas network pipelines continue to expand throughout the country, there is also a growing range of service offerings that allows the hospitality sector to better harness the energy form. While the catering side of the industry has long preferred gas equipment for food preparation, Gas Networks Ireland feels that there is strong potential for the wider sector to benefit from switching over to gas power for a range of other uses. Principally this can be see through the installation of Combined Heating and Power Units or CHP that allow larger hotel premises to utilise gas in the creation of electricity and heating power on site. These units continue to become more cost efficient, securing a quick return on investment – especially given business concerns over rising fuel prices per kilowatt hour over the past number of years in Ireland.

Maintaining 13,832km of gas pipeline and delivering natural gas to over 160 towns and cities, Gas Networks Ireland sees the hospitality sector as an ideal area for expansion through not only hotels and restaurants but also smaller operators such as cafes and bars.

Case studies have indicated the possibility of strong savings for businesses that do make the full or partial conversion to gas, particularly with CHP adaptation for hotels which allows for a thorough evaluation of power and heating usage throughout a property. Combined with the current price point, gas also has an ideal load profile for the industry, requiring no delivery or storage facilities; something alluded to by companies that do make the switch as a considerable additional benefit in comparison to LPG or kerosene. With a straightforward connection process to the grid, users can then decide between CHP and traditional gas usage with current emphasis for hotels being placed on conversions to the former. This is due to the relatively low number of adoptees of CHP thus far of around ten percent, which McFadden believes is due to a lack of understanding about the true benefit of the system amongst the wider industry.

A CHP unit is essentially a micro power plant complete with an alternator that includes heat exchangers for the capture of heat energy that can be then used to power hot water and central heating systems throughout a building without any substantial waste. “It’s a perfect combination but unfortunately in this country, less than one hundred hotels are using CHP”, declares McFadden who points to not only savings that can be enjoyed by the industry but also the environmental benefits that can be found with a lack of heat waste from generation on site. This is made even more pressing given the timeframe for return on investment at the average hotel

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ranging between just two and four years with respect to variance in property size and energy use.

“The reason that we are promoting and developing case studies for hotels and on site generation is that the units are perfect for the industry, meaning that they have the right load profile”, states McFadden with respect to the delivery of reliable and secure supply that also boasts the highest efficiency and environmental statistics of any major fuel source on the market.

Those benefits are also combined with independence from the electrical grid and the avoidance of any power outages, although McFadden is quick to note that hotels are not required to break that connection and can use the less stable grid system as a backup supply should maintenance or any outages occur from a CHP unit. While those advantages are not to be overlooked, perhaps the strongest argument for conversion is that of the economic benefits and the bridging of the so-called energy ‘smart gap’. Onsite CHP generation sees energy averaging at just 4c to 4.5c per kilowatt-hour, substantially lower than the 14c average for commercial electrical supply and up to half the cost of a similar oil or LPG usage.

Amongst the featured case studies that have been profiled by Gas Networks Ireland is that of the Rochestown Park Hotel on the outskirts of Cork City. As one of the early adopters of the system in this country the proprietors first installed a CHP unit during the 1990s and have recently upgraded to a more advanced version of CHP in the last two years. Since the installation of that newer system, the hotel has enjoyed savings of around €100,000. Another highlighted case is that of the Ormonde Hotel in Kilkenny, which encompasses 120 rooms and a leisure centre. The size of the hotel, its location and turnover are all example of what Gas Networks Ireland believes will be a strong selling point for adoption of the system by hotels throughout the country.

Formally using CHP for just a portion of their energy needs, McFadden says that when making a head to head comparison with traditional electric power a detailed daily profile of energy use and waste was a clear indicator of what direction to go when the hotel decided to fully transfer to CHP. “They totally refurbished and relocated the CHP unit in an encased container on the roof of their car park facility and did all the pipework from there making a link between that CHP unit and everything in the hotel”, with McFadden also detailing the availability of full service solutions from a number of CHP manufactures and installers. The current setup now sees the hotel to make savings of approximately €50,000, with the unit allowing for a two-year return on investment. Furthermore, CHP will allow the Ormonde Hotel the option of installing absorption chillers in the future, with this third dimension to the system capable of utilising chemical reactions to transform unwanted heating in summer months into an air cooling function.

For general connections at small to large enterprises that do not wish to include a CHP unit, the process is relatively simple with large connections taking around eight weeks down to as little as four to six for average an SME link. “We subsidise ourselves, we have a pricing mechanism, where only 30% of SME connection costs are generally charged to the client with the other 70% put onto our books” details McFadden who also notes that similar arrangements are often made with larger customers.

McFadden promises that regardless of connection type, Gas Networks Ireland will have a sales representative on site within one working day in order to expedite this process and once a customer makes a decision to go ahead based on the quote they receive, the process sees generally quick completion subject to local authority planning.

Two new towns have recently been added to the network with Wexford and Nenagh showing a strong uptake amongst local hospitality enterprises. In addition, Gas Networks Ireland is hosting a dedicated Combined Heat and Power Conference (half day event) in Dublin on Tuesday, 11 October. For those interested in this event or setting up a consultancy with Gas Networks Ireland, further information is available from 1850 411 511.

Colm Ryan

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GMIT news

Summer Work Placement Programme

– Thank you Colleagues!

A huge thanks to all industry partners both in Ireland and overseas for your continued support of GMIT students undertaking accredited work placement programmes. Your support and leadership is a critical part of the learning experience and for this we remain so very grateful.

At the time of writing colleagues are visiting students on work placement and this visit is a very important part of the overall experience. We are so grateful to all of you who give your time and input freely and this feedback certainly influences how we do our work. Without your support this activity would be impossible to accomplish and I hope many of you see it as an opportunity to influence the next generation of hospitality and culinary professionals and maybe, through inspiring these learners, we might just keep this generation in our industry for a sustainable period of time.

Our work placement programme continues to grow and more graduate opportunities are opening up for GMIT. We are indebted to our many industry partners who work with us and indeed I am proud to share that many of these colleagues are GMIT graduates.

On a recent trip to the US I was delighted to meet up with many GMIT alumni including Terry Dunbar, GM in the Hyatt Regency in Boston. In New York I was lucky to be staying in Fitzpatrick’s Grand Central and met up with GMIT grads Shane Cookman and Patrick Leyden. Patrick is the GM at Fitzpatrick’s Grand Central and Shane is Regional Managers for Fitzpatrick’s in the USA. John Daly, Executive Director of F&B for Hotel Hershey is another GMIT grad who takes five GMIT students annually on the hotel internship programme and on a trip to Florida it was great to reconnect with Damien O’Riordan, another GMIT grad and now the GM at the Ritz Carlton in Sarasota.

We are keen to encourage students to continue learning overseas and many of you who have graduated from an Irish college will no doubt recollect your own great experiences and stories.

Colleagues often tell us how good GMIT students are doing when we visit them on work placement and our response, in general, is always the same: “we try hard every day to make a positive difference, we don’t always get it right and things do go wrong but we are constantly trying to do better and improve. We develop our curriculum in partnership with industry and other stakeholders, we expose students to real life industry experiences in GMIT as often as we can. All students on all awards in our school undertake practical experience, we strive to produce the best graduates we possibly can and based on graduate survey feedback we are doing well but will always strive to do more and do better”.

Míle buíochas, without your support and input we really couldn’t do all we do.

Vice President International Engagement Head of College Tourism & Arts Galway Mayo Institute of Technology Dublin Road Galway Email cait.noone@gmit.ie www.gmit.ie

Dean Corcoran & Sinead Flaherty-BB Bar Management on Work Placement in The Kensington Hotel,London

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Laura OKeefe, BB Event Management, on Work Placement in Hilton Head USA

Sorcha Monaghan - BB Cul. Arts and Mike Byrne , BA in Hotel Management on Work Placement in Arles, France

GMIT news

New programmes International Tourism Management and Culinary Arts approved for September 2016 GMIT will be offering three new awards in September 2016 and more are on the way for September 2017.

The new honours degree in International Tourism Management was approved by an external validation panel in early June.

Staff of the College of Tourism and Arts have a strong relationship with local and national employers, and there is much interaction at varying levels with partners. As such, engagement with employers, potential employers, industry analysts, and industry development is ongoing and growing.

As part of the programmatic review process a focus group of tourism industry stakeholders was undertaken and their feedback, along with other stakeholder feedback influenced this development which was led by co-joint programme chairs Maria Murphy and John Carty.

Students can expect to study a range of exciting and innovative modules including destination and resort management, tourism law, tourism economics, sustainable tourism management and history, heritage and culture in a tourism context.

If anyone would like more information on this new development please email Gerry O’Neill, Head of Department for Tourism and Heritage email: Gerry. oneill@gmit.ie Much discussion continues to take place around the demand for chefs in our industry and in response to the Expert Skills Group report last November GMIT has developed two new minor awards in culinary arts beginning in September 2016. Both awards will last for fifteen weeks.

Trainee chefs will study two days per week in college and spend the remainder of their time in industry and this industry based work will count towards academic credit attainment during their time on the course. More details are available for Head of Department for Culinary Arts Gerry Talbot email: Gerry.talbot@gmit.ie

GMIT La Rochelle-Bordeaux experience April 2016 Culinary Arts, Hospitality Studies, Hotel Management and Event Management students: Mariam, Brian, Mike, Isabela, Padraig, Joey, Daniel, Ashleigh, Joseph, Tommy, Caroline, Lorcan, Sarah, Frank, Sorcha, Jennifer, Michael, with Colin Gilligan, Martin Ruffley and Anne Brindley spent an amazing 5 days in France, tasting, savouring, meeting their peers, soaking up sunshine and atmosphere.

They picnicked beside Notre Dame in Paris, and had a photo op under the Eiffel Tower before taking the train to La Rochelle. There they dined in the Lycée Hôtelier de La Rochelle, spent a day with their peers from the Lycée, tasting Grand Marnier and enjoying a buffet lunch in the Château of Grand Marnier, followed by a visit to the Musée du Cognac in Cognac.

Friday, a full morning in Practicals in the Lycée, a visit of the town of La Rochelle and its amazing Aquarium. On Saturday, a 2 hour train ride to sunny Bordeaux, a guided tour of the city, and a professional wine-tasting experience in the École du Vin in the CIV Bordeaux , followed by free time and an exceptional meal experience on the foodie street of St Remi.

Sunday they visited Le Marché des Capucins, feasting their eyes on and tasting the freshest of produce before heading back from Bordeaux to Dublin late Sunday afternoon.

Tourism trip to La Rochelle

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Great National

Hotel Ballina, Co. Mayo

Great National Continues to Forge Ahead One of the industry’s success stories in recent years, the Irishowned Great National Hotels and Resorts Group continues to move from strength to strength with recent additions to its portfolio including the 4* Hotel Ballina in Co. Mayo and most recently the 4* Mulranny Park Hotel, also in Co. Mayo. Supporting predominantly 4-star hotels and resorts alongside deluxe 3-star properties via a range of services such as operations management, reservations outsourcing, revenue and channel management, Great National is now one of Ireland’s and the UK’s fastest growing hotel groups.

“We’re delighted to welcome Hotel Ballina to Great National given the hotel’s reputation as one of the North West’s leading 4-star hotels.

Our ongoing plans include refurbishment throughout key areas of the hotel so as to copper-fasten the property within the weddings, events and domestic leisure markets.”

Located outside Ballina, the 87-bedroom Hotel Ballina which includes extensive leisure, meetings and banqueting facilities, is operated as a Great National branded property under a long-term management agreement, and is currently undergoing an investment programme following its acquisition earlier this year, 2016.

Also recently acquired in conjunction with its investment partners, the 4-star 61-bedroom Mulranny Park Hotel will be operated by Great National. Overlooking Clew Bay, the multiple award-winning Mulranny Park boasts an enviable reputation as one of Ireland’s leading wedding venues; the hotel has also borne host to various VIP guests down through the years, including most famously John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1968.

Commenting on the Mayo property, David Byrne added: “we’re very excited about this opportunity as the Mulranny Park which in addition to enjoying an established reputation as a leading destination resort, occupies a key strategic bay-side location for us, adjacent to the Great Western Greenway.”

David Byrne, CEO for the Great National Group, recently sat down with the Hotel and Restaurant Times to discuss the Group’s recent expansion including plans for the future.

“Our two latest acquisitions brings to seven the total number of hotel purchases we’ve completed with our investor partners in the last 24 months, which are in addition to five managed properties: the Group – which is co-owned by myself, David Collins, James Sullivan and David O’Connor - now has a total of €60m worth of assets under management.”

David Byrne, CEO, Great National Hotels & Resorts Group

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Great National

Mulranny Park Hotel, Co. Mayo “Our business continues to be founded on both product and service excellence. We are significantly accelerating growth, reducing costs and improving market reach for the hotels we represent, and we look forward to continuing to bring this same impact to all our hotels including Hotel Ballina and the Mulranny Park. Our ultimate aim is to become the largest independently owned hotel brand in both Ireland and the UK.” On a separate expansion front, the group will also shortly be launching its much anticipated boutique budget brand, Great Nite Inn, which will initially comprise four locations – growing ultimately to 36 hotels by 2018 - throughout the UK and Ireland, including Cork and Limerick. This initial launch phase will follow an announcement in Q3 2016 in regards to first round funding for the brand and will involve conversions of existing hotels, featuring a superior bedroom standard, central locations, signature value and a unique ground floor F&B experience, ‘Off The Bone’.

Mulranny Park Hotel, Co. Mayo

Byrne added: “since our commencement in 2010, Great National has consistently made a difference to our members.

Our choice of affiliation programmes allows hotels to compete more effectively without the associated costs or long term commitments of traditional hotel brands. Uniquely transparent and quantifiable, we deliver immediate results in terms of increased revenues and reduced distribution costs for the hotels we work with, managed and otherwise.”

“We offer much more than any other international brand or marketing consortium with our low cost of entry, high performance solution. This is enabled by our group structure which opens up economies of scale and allows independent hotels to tap into proven expertise, netting increased occupancy loads and improved RevPar through various revenue management solutions.”

With its head office in Ennis and a regional sales office in the UK, the Great National brand now comprises 53 hotels, split equally between the UK and Ireland with nearly 3,500 bedrooms. The group directly employs 40 staff and indirectly 550 staff throughout the hotels it manages.

According to Byrne: “The challenges facing hoteliers going forward should not be under-estimated: our closest, and largest single market Britain is now officially in recession in the wake of BREXIT and this alone, even aside from currency fluctuations, the uncertainty regarding the North/South

Hotel Ballina, Co. Mayo border, and the escalation of terrorism atrocities, is already directly impacting on propensity to travel.”

“Our goal however is and always has been since we started the business to be the best at what we do in the market – from asset management to revenue acceleration and distribution optimization - creating a home grown brand that participates on the international stage for the benefit of all our clients.”

With this in mind, with both this recent and pipeline expansion (which will see a further 4-star hotel acquisition within Ireland by end-Q3 2016), combined of course with consistent growth in rooms revenues for its member hotels, Great National continues to forge ahead as one of the most important brand names in the industry, providing a much-needed, proven solution for independent hotels and resorts.

For further details, please visit www.greatnationalhotels.com

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IFSA news

Catering Innovation Agency

World of Coffee Dublin Ends on a High - Thousands Gather in Dublin for SCAE’s Flagship Event

They came in their thousands to follow the hugely successful World of Coffee to Dublin for the first time ever. Over 6,500 people met with more than 1,500 exhibitors at 250 stands over the 3-day event at the 10,000sqm RDS Simmonscourt venue. IFSA was delighted to partner with the local coffee community to bring the largest coffee event in Europe to Dublin, an event which has great value in raising the profile of Irish food and beverage business across Europe.

The World Barista Champion and the World Brewers Cup Champion were both crowned, thousands of coffee professionals were educated and inspired and the parties will go down in World of Coffee history as some of the best nights in Dublin!

Organised by the Speciality Coffee Association of Europe (SCAE) and sponsored by BWT water+more, World of Coffee Dublin combined an interactive exhibition which even had a silent disco! There was also an expansive programme of educational seminars, talks and cuppings and the first ever Sustainability Forum which proved a very successful addition to the event.

The SCAE Excellence Awards, sponsored by OikoCredit, the New Product of the Show Awards and the SCAE Photography Awards were all given to worthy winners and the second year of Re:co the Speciality Coffee Symposium, where delegates discussed innovation and strategic development within the industry, was another great success.

The World of Coffee Dublin was supported by IFSA.

DIARY NOTE – September Will See the Next in the IFSA Seminars Addressing ‘Brexit and your Food Service Business” • What will happen to confidence and will buying/consumption behaviour change?

• Managing currency issues post Brexit • Future proofing your business & trade Details of Dates and venues to be announced.

THE 5TH IFSA GOLF CLASSIC

Another competitive and friendly day with plenty of networking potential is planned for the IFSA Golf Classic on Friday, 26th August at Newlands Golf Club, Dublin 22. Alongside the general competition teams from the various association trade bodies will be challenged by a ‘crack IFSA 3-ball grouping’ for the title of IFSA Association Challenge Champions and the Contract Catering fraternity will again compete for the coveted Contract Caterer’s Trophy. The day’s golfing will be followed by a dinner and prize giving at 8pm. Places can be booked for Golf and Dinner or for dinner only. Book your place before 17th August by contacting IFSA at info@ifsa.eu.com or by calling 01 8460020.

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“When restaurant goers take picture of kitchen equipment this is surely a new phenomenon .The Breeders Restaurant in Athlone has become a centre of excellence for steak lovers in the midlands.

The secret of this success is the new Mibrassa charcoal oven supplied by the C.I.A. the Catering Innovation Agency.

C.I.A. agents Enda O’Donoghue and Seamus Marnane believe passionately in innovation in food service equipment.

The Carlow based company has grown rapidly since 2008 and adds a Galway Hub this autumn. Smarter catering products like Palux inductions suites and energy efficient Merrychef e2s ovens have help progress and found favour with discerning foodservice professional throughout the country.

However the launch of the Mibrasa charcoal oven on the Irish market has been a huge success. The breeders Athlone love the atmosphere, the story and the craft that charcoal cooking brings. The customers love it too just check on trip advisor to see the customer pictures of the Mibrasa oven from the C.I.A.”

La Rousse Foods The latest addition to La Rousse Foods’ stateof-the–art Butchery is its specialised dry-ageing room that sees exceptional cuts of meats from Ireland aged to perfection. From Killenure Dexter Beef, Organic Rare Breed Pork, to Piemontese Irish Beef and Macroom Buffalo, all meats are carefully selected by our Master Butchers and prepared to customers’ requirements. The Butchery is also known for its Feirme Nadhurtha label that sees Jonathan Cahill, the Butchery Manager, travel the country to find the finest meats, such as Kerry Hill Lamb and Skeaghanore Duck.

The butchery recently celebrated the victory of Master Butcher, Eric Donnelly at the IFEX Expo in Belfast, who won the Gold Medal after competing against other highly skilled butchers from all over the country to display skills, knowledge and savoir-faire on different cuts of meat.

La Rousse Foods is an Irish award-winning fine food supplier, renowned for its bespoke service to customers with a cheese-maturing room and an in-house chocolate lab among other key features.

For more information: www.laroussefoods.ie Tel: 01 6545000

IFSA news

INNOVATE OR DIE This is the mantra business leaders both fear and encourage but what does it actually mean to be an innovative business?

Noel Branagh is Managing Director of Bunzl McLaughlin, a supplier of catering and cleaning disposables, who in 2012 created a spin off business: Bunzl Catering Design Solutions (CDS). Bunzl CDS would use innovation and thought leadership to take on the market of designing, sourcing and project managing the installation of commercial kitchens and catering areas.

Business leaders have long been told that innovation is the key to achieving sustainable competitive advantage especially in today’s globalised economy but innovation isn’t something that can be switched on overnight; it must be embedded in the culture of an organisation.

Bunzl CDS create an initial digital sketch up onsite and convert it into a fully rendered 3D model.

All your deli consumables are now within reach!

Whether you run a deli bar, sandwich counter, coffee shop, restaurant or take away, Reach Retail Services are proud to introduce a new range of non-food deli consumables featuring superior quality products, at excellent prices.

From coffee cups and sandwich bags to napkins and stirrers, Reach’s range features everything you’ll need for your business, supported by a customer service ethos that’s guarantees satisfaction.

And being a part of one of Ireland’s largest delivery and logistics’ companies, our next day guarantee means you’ll never have to wait for essential supplies again!

Value

Thanks to the combined ‘buying power’ of Reach Retail Services and our partners, we’ve sourced a range of quality products that are made available to you at the most competitive prices.

Service

Whether it’s online, by e-mail or through our call centre, a Reach representative is available to respond to your needs to ensure you receive the personalised service you deserve – we’ll take care of your consumable requirements so you can concentrate on your own customers!

Choice

Selected product lines are available for personalisation with your own logo and identity, while standard products come in traditional white or our attractive ‘It’s So Fresh’ branding- ask your sales representative for details.

Next Day Delivery

Backed by the distribution arm of Independent News & Media, Reach Retail Services trucks and vans already travel the country each day, guaranteeing next day delivery once your order is placed by 1pm.

For more information or to place an order, please contact: (023) 8858107 custservices@reachgroup.ie www.reachretailservices.ie

Resource is always the most important aspect of any successful business.

Investment must be made in recruiting talent with cutting edge ideas, skills and finding ways to integrate them into an existing team whose main asset is their experience.

Bunzl CDS has built up a team of 6 project managers, 3 CAD designers, 2 service managers, 2 sourcing specialists and a network of 100 engineers covering the whole island of Ireland. They have innovation, creativity and collaboration embedded firmly into their culture, enabling them to constantly develop new ways to differentiate themselves in their marketplace and sustain their competitive advantage.

Samples of Bunzl CDS’s portfolio of work can be seen on www.cateringdesignsolutions.net

We are Ireland’s leading importer and distributor of top quality Italian foods and wines since 2002.

Our mission is to supply authentic Italian products to Irish restaurants, catering and retail clients. We source products that sell really well in Italy, at the right price for our customers.

We select our suppliers according to strict criteria based on · Quality - organoleptic product features and ingredients, · Production Process & Ethics - companies sharing the same values as we do, promoting good eating.

Using a lifetime of food experience, we select only the best products at the right price. To ensure consistency, we monitor both products and producers directly.

We are in a position to supply a wide range of products – including niche ones.

For each product category, we offer different ranges quality and price levels, so our clients can better match their customers’ needs. Thanks to our in-depth products, market knowledge and rooted relationship with key players in the Food & Wine industry, we supply over 400 restaurants, catering and retail clients in Ireland.

Our logistics chain is extremely efficient and optimized through large movements in Italy and Ireland. We have our own warehousing, dispatch and delivery operations that allow for an extremely fast order turnaround time. Our sales team also act as Food & Wine consultants, helping our clients choose and sell the right products.

If you haven’t tried us yet, visit our website www.italicatessen.ie and call us today on (01) 201 1617.

Glenn Roberts, Managing Director of Hoshizaki Gram UK, comments:

The launch of the EU Ecodesign Directive means that there are significant changes ahead for heavy equipment manufactures and distributors. These changes should however be largely positive for operators as the objective of the EU Ecodesign Directive is to help the foodservice industry reduce energy consumption by ensuring manufacturers are challenged to bring to market more energy efficient products.

Hoshizaki Gram UK has always been in the vanguard of energy efficient technology and as such is perfectly placed to embrace the new EU Ecodesign Directive. The brand is proud to announce that seven models within its current portfolio including the SuperiorPlus 72 and EcoPlus are rated as an A on the new labeling system making it one the most competitive yet sustainable manufacturers on the market.

As the industry closely scrutinises the energy efficient performance level of refrigeration, manufacturers have to not only improve the credentials of their products, but also be completely open with how their units rate within the new labelling system.

Aiming to make the implementation of the EU Ecodesign Directive easy to understand for buyers and distributors, Hoshizaki Gram UK’s website has clearly labeled all of its products. It is also hosted a bespoke webinar to help the industry get to grips with the new labeling system, and aims to overcome its complexity and simplify the process.

For more information on energy efficient refrigeration, visit www.gogreenwithgram.co.uk or call 01322 616900 H&RT AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2016

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IHI

Martin Mangan, General Manager of the Conrad Dublin, took over presidency of the Irish Hospitality Institute (IHI) in May of 2015 following the Institutes AGM. The very high calibre of previous presidents include; Nicky Logue and Fergal O’Connell and this year Martin is at the helm for the 50th year of the organisation. The purpose of the IHI is to encourage growth, development and recognition of Hospitality professionals across the industry and it represents close to 1,000 professionals throughout the country. Formerly the IHCI (Irish Hotel & Catering Institute), the organisation was re-branded 10 years ago to reflect the diversity in the industry. “Hospitality is the term that describes the industry now and everyone involved in the IHI from our patrons to our individual members come under that umbrella ”, says Martin.

So why would someone want to be involved in the IHI? Martin, explains, “The IHI is the only body out there that recognises the individual in the Hospitality sector in the same way the Chartered Accountants of Ireland does. Other organisations focus on the business entity, we focus on the Individual. We are not in competition for members with our fellow organisations operating in the Hospitality sector, but rather we see ourselves as partners and have built strong bonds with the likes of IFSA, IHF and the RAI”.

You don’t need to be a business owner to be a member of the IHI; you can join as a student, a graduate and at any stage of your career. “We are about recognising an individual’s outstanding achievement in the industry, continuous professional development, networking, providing support to our members and promoting the Hospitality industry generally, is the aim of the organisation”, Martin explains.

Having seen the benefits of the organisation first hand, Martin’s passion for the work of the IHI is understandable. “My first introduction to the IHI was back in the early1990’s. I had been working in the industry for a while and I wanted to go

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IHI back into training and the IHI provided me with options to do that. It was during a time when employers didn’t really support people to do third level qualifications and distance learning or part-time education was still in its infancy. I did my Leaving Certificate but I didn’t get the points for the course in hospitality I wanted. I did not fancy the other options I got on the CAO so I began looking for other options, and at the time the Doyle Hotel Group offered a management development programme so I took that road. I went in as a 17-year-old and I spent five years there”.

“I realised that I needed to combine practical experience with professional development and that’s when the day release course offered by the DIT in conjunction with the IHI came to my attention. It allowed me to work and study at the same time and a lot of people followed that path after me. It was the beginning of my progression of lifelong learning”. I later returned to DIT to complete a Masters in Hospitality Management”, explains Martin.

Developing programmes that promote the industry is one of the aims of the IHI and a partnership programme between the IHI and Tralee IT has resulted in a Transition Year Programme aimed at TY Students and Career Guidance Counsellors in second level education. “Together we developed an online programme called ‘Tourism Insight’ to inform students and career guidance counsellors about the hospitality industry and the career options within it. “It has been an enormous success; the figures speak for themselves”, says Martin. “This programme was spearheaded by Natasha Kinsella the Institutes ex. CEO and the online content and programme was developed

by Tralee IT with Mary Rose Stafford of Tralee IT. The programme would not have been possible if it were not for the financial support of Fáilte Ireland, the IHF and the RAI along with our many industry partners who believe in this project and have supported it”.

“Before we launched the programme less than 30% of students said they would consider a career in the hospitality sector. After going through just the first module of the programme, more than 70% of students said they would consider a career in the hospitality sector and more than 90% said they would consider taking up a placement in the hospitality sector during transition year”.

But what does Martin hope to have achieved by the end of his presidency? “We have carried out a full strategic review of the IHI and this has led to a full rebranding, the development of a new platform for communication including a new website developed by our patrons, Net Affinity and a new social media platform to enable us to better communicate with our members especially the millennials. We have looked inwardly and outwardly at our organisation and set about redefining what we are about, focussing on our core values”.

The seeds have been sown by the work of the IHI in the last 50 years and now it’s time to reap the harvest and a very positive future for the organisation and the industry.

The programme will shortly be available in over 150 schools across the country. Martin asserts, “We need to be targeting post primary level students to promote hospitality as a viable career option. There are gaps within the sector that will cause problems in a few years and it’s not just chefs, or waiters it’s supervisors, managers, front of house staff etc. Tourism has been a huge factor in the recovery of the Irish economy and I believe we have a great ethos, a great natural product and a great culture of hospitality that people of any nationality can work in”.

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IT Tallaght

Food Innovation showcase by BA in Culinary Arts Students Recently the BA in Culinary Arts students showcased their new product ideas to industry representatives to include Bord Bia and the Local Enterprise Board. Many products focused on niche gaps in the market in particular in the area of health and wellness. Following the showcase they then had to present their ideas in a Dragon’s Den-type scenario. The high standard of their work and creativity was complemented and many were strongly encouraged to take their product concept to the take stage of developing the product commercially for the market. We look forward to monitoring their progress. Watch this space!

Niagara College Canada New Culinary Arts & Hospitality College Partner Recently a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Niagara College, Ontario, Canada and the Institute of Technology Tallaght was signed. This is a very welcome opportunity for enhanced collaboration on our academic programmes and research areas for both staff and students particularly in the area of culinary arts and hospitality studies. Nestled in the heart of Niagara’s rich wine and culinary country, Niagara College is home to Canada’s first teaching brewery and commercial teaching winery, along with a world-renowned culinary and food innovation programme.

Culinary Nutrition -Trend Corner

• With the current demand for Plant-based foods, the trend ‘Root to Stem’ cooking for menus is on the rise. As well as reducing waste, and introducing new natural flavours, the nutrition of the dish is also enhanced.

Some examples are: • Broccoli: the florets and stalks deliver equal amounts of nutrients, protective phytochemicals ( beta carotene, carotenoids and sulforaphane), compounds which protect against certain cancers). The leaves can also be used.

• Celery leaves are a rich source of Vitamin A, and flavonoid antioxidants such as zea-xanthin, lutein and beta carotene, which have anti-oxidant, cancer preventing and immune-boosting functions.

• Beetroot tops: the greens from the beetroot are rich in carotenoids, flavonoid anti-oxidants and Vitamin A

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DFL Fitouts & Joinery specialises in both standard and off standard joinery, fitted furniture, reception counters and complete shop, pub and restaurant fit-outs.

Bespoke

is

Better At Delaney’s Bespoke Furniture we craft furniture, which is unique and

We combine traditional craftsmanship with the most modern design and planning systems to offer a complete design, manufacture and installation service. Our Fitout division are currently working on a new Pub fitout in Dublin, numerous coffee shops in Ireland & the UK as well as recently completing Global 5 restaurant in Dundrum.

We have our own modern joinery manufacturing facility where we fabricate all types of premium quality, purpose made joinery for all our own fit out projects as well as supplying Fire Doors and bespoke joinery to others.

unmatched for a discerning clientele.

Established in 1963 we have a breadth of experience that’s unrivalled and ensures we create exclusivity to every project we undertake.

Portfolio includes some of Irelands leading hotels and restaurants.

Recent projects include

Charlemont Hotel, Lillies Bordello, Conrad hotel, Morgan Hotel, Intercontinental Hotel, Rustic Stone & Taste, Brasserie Sixty6 and Bow Lane to name but a few

DELANEY’S BESPOKE FURNITURE 19C Grove Road Finglas Dublin 11 email tomdelaneydbf@hotmail.com Tel 086 3539418 Web www.delaneysbespokefurniture.ie freeneys advert.pdf 1 04/08/2016

12:27

www.dfl.ie / ww.barfitouts.com / Tel 00 353 51 374593 / E-mail : Thomas@dfl.ie

Pro-Light is Ireland’s leading designers and providers of retail, presentation and hospitality lighting.

With over 20 years of experience it has gained a reputation for quality lighting design, reliability & effective project support.

• Retail & Presentation • Showrooms & Display • Hospitality & Leisure • Restaurants & Bar • Commercial & Decorative • Internal & External

Branding - Signs - Display Specialist in Hotel, Bar & Restaurant Signage, Branding & Display Graphics.

Graphic Design Wall Graphics Lettering Vehicle Wraps Way Finding Window Graphics Large Format B1 Southcity Business Centre, Whitestown Way, Tallaght, Dublin 24

Tel: 01 452 0352 Email: info@freeneys.ie www.freeneys.ie

Recent contracts include Caprice Restaurant Galway with Millimetre Design

We listen and understand your needs Pro-Light Design & Technology Ltd, Westerton Lodge, Old Ballinteer Road, Dundrum, Dublin 16, Ireland.

Tel: +353 (0)1 2962607 | Web: pro-light.ie Pro-light are also a PHILIPS certified professional partner

millimetre design

Crafted to the last millimetre During the Celtic Tiger, Millimetre Design appeared to have it all.

But then recession hit. What happened next, wonders H&R Times.

When Hotel and Restaurant Times first talked to Millimetre Design, in late 2006, business was booming. Founded only two years beforehand, the design company had a raft of crowning achievements across the hospitality industry, including the €35 million Quality Hotel and Leisure Centre in Limerick, The Continental Bar in Portarlington, and Ramada Encore hotels in Galway and Belfast. But those were very different times. The Celtic Tiger had brought unprecedented investment into the country, and many hotels, restaurants, and designers, did not survive the financial decimation of 2008/2009.

So it comes as a pleasant surprise to discover that, a decade later, Millimetre is still thriving. How come? It adapted. When recession hit, Ronan Holohan, the company’s managing director, asked a question of himself: “Do we go abroad looking for work, which rivals are doing, or do we approach a different way of business?”

Millimetre Design expanded its markets and explored different areas of design. In a sense, this was always the ethos of Millimetre Design, a company where the devil is in the detail. “It’s not a specialist design company,” explains the MD. “We’re a design solutions company. We’re not looking at one particular area within the interiors industry.”

The company invested in staff, software and hardware, and began to work across every aspect of the hospitality industry, as well as across office, retail, and residential spaces. Holohan took on full time graphic designers who could engage in branding, identity and packaging. This way, the business could provide a complete design solution for a hospitality business: from conceptual planning to interior design, and to branding of the finished product, which includes menu design for restaurants..

“I think good designers need to be challenged and work in areas they are not always comfortable in,” says the MD. “I think it makes them better designers. We’ve now become a very unique entity.

We’re the only people in the country who have interiors, branding, and project management all under one roof.”

Millimetre Design has 12 years of experience on its side, alongside the accumulated experience of Holohan and his team of 22 professionals, some of whom are based in London and on the continent. The company prides itself on problem solving, as well as evaluating and advising on the quality of materials, products and furnishings. It is accustomed to delivering projects on time and within budget, always with creative design and flair The company’s newfound diversity led it into brand & packaging design for individual food and drink products. It has remained true to its core and continued to work in traditional hospitality spaces. Recent projects include a fitout of the bedrooms, restaurant, function and public spaces of the Westin Hotel, on Dublin’s Westmoreland Street. It recently finished designing the bedrooms in the Hilton Dublin Hotel on Charlemont Place, where it previously designed the bar and restaurant last year and a large extension project in the New Year.

Other projects include: an extension to Trinity City Hotel Dublin; a refurbishment of ground floor bedrooms at Johnstown House Hotel & Spa, in Co Meath; the opening of Caprice, a new restaurant in Galway; Glenlo Abbey Hotel, Galway refurbishment Bedrooms & Restaurant: Vanilla Pod restaurant, Blackrock; and Chopped,

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millimetre design

a healthy fast food franchise. Seven Chopped food outlets have opened so far; another six are due to open by the end of 2016. Chopped is an example of a client where Millimetre Design not only designed the interiors, but also the complete brand, including logo, signage, uniform design, menus etc.

Since the recession, many clients are bringing a new clarity to their business, according to Holohan. “If you want to do something, do it well, rather than offering every kind of food possible. The speciality restaurant is now successful. That was very difficult 15 or 20 years ago.

The likes of Chopped: healthy fast food is an incredible success story.”

Design is like fashion - always changing and evolving.

During the Celtic Tiger, it was all about opulent, overthe-top looks. Today, many hospitality proprietors prefer stripped back, industrial, or retro designs. “The beauty of working in a lot of different sectors - food, retail, office, educational, residential, leisure gyms, hotels - is we are exposed to a wide variety of requirements which keeps us on our toes and stimulates creativity. We keep our design fresh. If you’re focused on one area, you tend to get known for a look or style.”

Technology has changed people’s needs. “It has become a lot more social. The way we work has changed. People are more mobile, they work from home. Ten years ago, meetings were held in hotel boardrooms or in offices.

Now you see people in suits in coffee shops. A separate entity within a hotel foyer or lounge is important to serve that environment. Hoteliers are creating pockets and zones [for coffee baristas] to facilitate quicker meetings.”

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millimetre design

Nothing has changed in regards to the skills required to work within the operational environment of a hotel or restaurant, though.

“Some of the bigger projects are still broken down into phasing, just to keep the budgets tight. You also have to work around noise levels. For a hotel, the customer is king. It’s not a conventional site in terms of project management.”

Millimetre Design recently worked on a series of 60 bedrooms at the InterContinental Dublin Hotel.

It proceeded to refurbish the property’s Season’s Restaurant, then the foyer, function rooms, lounge, and bar. Work will commence on more bedrooms and corridors in August. More carefully-synced work will take place at the hotel over the next 18 months. Due to Millimetre’s extensive experience, it brings knowledge about statutory planning, rules and regulations.

“We understand them all,” says the MD. “Particularly the building control regulations that were introduced a few years back. A lot of design practices don’t have that knowledge.”

Millimetre Design does not rest on its laurels.

Holohan and his team frequently travel the UK and Europe seeking design ideas and inspiration. “We have to see what the next possibility is. We don’t want to be trend followers, we want to be trend setters for our clients,” he says.

“

When financial collapse occurred, there was always a risk that Millimetre Design’s hard work would be thrown on the funeral pyre of the Celtic Tiger. But this design company seized opportunity in the face of recession. In 2016, it appears stronger than ever.

I think good designers need to be challenged and work in areas they are not always comfortable in

”

“It wasn’t easy,” contends Holohan. “It was tough.

It was a fight. But we fought hard. We fought well.

And we were clever. We got ourselves into other areas of design that were interesting, that we knew we could deliver on. Now we are a stronger, more flexible company. People’s perception of us is even better than before the recession. That’s the way we want to drive it forward into the future. We want to continue to strive for excellence in all we do and continue to deliver complete design solutions that help our clients grow their business”.

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news

NEWS Take it to the Bank Old Bank House Kinsale has won the Great Taste Award 2016. Out of 10,000 products, Old Bank House was awarded a gold star at the Great Taste award for its Orange Marmalade. Judged by over 500 food critics, chefs, cooks, restaurateurs, producers, food writers and journalists, Great Taste is a respected food accreditation scheme for artisan and speciality food producers.

The public have spoken The Great Carvery of the Year competition is now coming to conclusion. From Macroom to Mayo, Killarney to Letterkenny and from Dublin to Derry, the Great Carvery of the Year 2016 shortlist includes 23 of Ireland’s best-loved hotels and pubs from around the country. Now in its seventh year, the nationwide Great Carvery of the Year competition is firmly established as the premier carvery competition on Ireland and Northern Ireland’s culinary calendar.

All finalists will receive a visit from the team of mystery shoppers to find out who serves the best carvery in the chosen pubs and hotels in each region.

Speaking about the competition, Mark McCarthy, Business Development Chef at Unilever Food Solutions said: “After seeing this year’s shortlist, it is obvious that the public has once again chosen some of the country’s finest carveries and I’m looking forward to seeing which of these great establishments come out on top.

“At Unilever Food Solutions, we believe that a great carvery meal is about much more than just the quality of the food served; it is about atmosphere, value and exceptional customer service and attention and that is what the Great Carvery of the Year competition is all about; finding the best in class from a nationwide pool of immensely talented chefs and operators. That’s why we call on the public to vote and show support for their favourite establishment.”

Finalists will be invited to attend the Great Carvery of the Year Grand Final in Dublin in October.

The two overall winning venues will receive PR and Marketing support to the value of €2,000 each. The winners’ prize also includes a specially-commissioned wall plaque to inform customers that they are about to sit down and enjoy the best carvery in Ireland. For more details, see www.greatcarvery.com.

Seasons in the sun Seasons at the Guinness Storehouse has been named Best Event Caterer 2016 at the Event Industry Awards, which took place recently in the Double Tree Hilton, Dublin.

Dub stars meet and greet Ciaran Kilkenny, Paul Mannion , Kevin McManamon and Michael Fitzsimons, from the Dublin Senior GAA Football panel, were on hand to host a motivational meet and greet session at the gibson hotel with local youth organisations. Fans from St. Joseph’s O’Connell Boys GAA Club, East Wall Recreational Centre, and Cross Care Youth Group, met with three of the senior Dublin footballers.

Hot to Handle Bewley’s, Ireland’s tea and coffee company, picked up 29 Gold Stars at the Great Taste Awards 2016.

Bewley’s Fairtrade Special Blend Tea and Dublin Morning Tea were awarded two Gold Stars each.

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news

Galway to host European Capital of Culture Galway has been chosen to host the European Capital of Culture 2020 along with Rijeka in Croatia. Galway was selected from a shortlist of three Irish candidate bids and was in competition from Limerick and the Three Sisters Bid (Waterford, Wexford and Kilkenny).

World of Coffee Dublin ends on a high They came in their thousands to follow World of Coffee to Dublin. Over 6,500 people met with more than 1,500 exhibitors at 250 stands, over the 3-day event, at the RDS Simmonscourt venue. Berg Wu of Taiwan was crowned the World Barista Champion.

Flying visit Dublin Airport has invested €2 million to improve the check-in experience for four of its major airline customers. Dublin Airport has installed 62 new self-service kiosks (SSKs), between Terminal 1 and Terminal 2, that will allow the airport and its airline customers to process greater numbers of passengers by increasing the peak check-in capacity. The new SSKs are being used by Aer Lingus, Ryanair, CityJet and Flybe passengers.

Ocean View King Sitric has completed a major refurbishment of its bedrooms, according to Ireland’s Blue Book. Situated in Howth and owned by the MacManus family, King Sitric has welcomed diners and guests for over 40 years. The newly refurbished guesthouse now offers 8 en-suite guest bedrooms overlooking Balscadden Bay. Each of the bedrooms are named after an Irish lighthouse: Maidens, Baily, Kish, Mine Head, Hook, Tuskar, Rockabill and Fastnet.

New York state of mind Deirdre McGlone, Donegal Person of the Year and Harvey’s Point hotelier, has just returned from New York City where she promoted Donegal as a visitor destination. During her visit, Deirdre hosted a Donegal Gathering, which brought the Donegal Diaspora together.

Deirdre was accompanied in the trip by Peggy Stringer, of the Donegal Association Dublin.

Funding announced for greenway projects Minister for Transport, Tourism & Sport Mr. Shane Ross T.D., has announced funding for greenway projects in Kildare, Meath, Longford and Westmeath. The Minister said: “Since my appointment as Minister, I have been particularly struck by the far-reaching benefits that greenways can bring to the localities in which they are situated as is evidenced by the success of the Great Western Greenway and other projects around the country. These benefits are not just confined to the economic realm from jobs created and sustained through the construction of the greenways to the spend on food, drink and accommodation by those using the greenways. They also extend to the health benefits, both physical and mental, of cycling and walking and to the environmental benefits from a reduction in emissions.”

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news

Iron Men Fáilte Ireland has welcomed seven top US golfing media, with a combined audience of 15 million to experience some of Ireland’s links courses on the Wild Atlantic Way. The group are pictured at Connemara Championship Links, Ballyconneely, Galway, with Rory Mathews Fáilte Ireland and Bernard McMullen, Tourism Ireland, where they enjoyed a round of golf.

Tram about town Millions of commuters in Barcelona are seeing ads for Ireland’s Ancient East (or “El Ancestral Este de Irlanda”) right now on trams and trains operating around the city. Tourism Ireland has wrapped the trams and trains in giant Ireland’s Ancient East ads to boost travel to Ireland this summer. The campaign is running for six weeks.

Three cheers for Boyne Brewhouse

Jamaica and Mexico open for business Dublin Airport has welcomed the launch of inaugural flights to Jamaica and Mexico by tour operator Falcon Holidays and Thomson, a member of TUI GROUP. Pictured is Charlotte Brenner, Brian Carey, Mia Carey, Karen Carey, Nahla Carey, and Michelle Reilly.

The Boyne Brewhouse, a new craft brewery located in the heart of Drogheda, Co. Meath, has unveiled its debut range of bottled craft beers. The three beers, which are being produced using traditional craft brewing methods and local ingredients, are now available for purchase in a number of stores and locations nationwide.

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news

Lap of honour

The bowl truth Maria Betts, the creator of the award-winning Maria Lucia Bakes range of cereals, has announced that her range of gourmet granolas is now on breakfast menus at the majority of Clayton Hotels within the Dalata Hotel Group.

C’est magnifique!

Caoimhe Ní Mhuilleoir, Tourism Ireland Paris (right), with French journalists in the gardens of Rowallane, Saintfield.

Flogas has pledged its support to the Irish Paralympic team that will compete in Rio de Janeiro later this year, by becoming an official partner of Paralympics Ireland. Speaking at the announcement, John Rooney, managing director, Flogas Ireland, said: “We’re very proud to lend our support to Paralympics Ireland and I am very pleased to welcome Patrick O’Leary, Michael McKillop, Eve McCrystal, Katie GeorgeDunlevy and Niamh McCarthy on to the Flogas sporting brand ambassador team. They will be a credit to Ireland in their respective disciplines this summer.”

Full throttle Top Gear presenters Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc spent a weekend filming in Kerry in April, for part of Top Gear.

Filming took place at some of our top attractions, including Ladies View and the dramatic panorama over the Killarney Lakes.

The Great Escape

Top of the glass

Tourism Ireland’s latest campaign to promote the island of Ireland in Britain sees the organisation team up with Secret Escapes, an exclusive members-only travel club. The campaign includes a twopage article, pictured, in the June edition of National Geographic magazine, which goes out to 1.7 million readers.

Brown Thomas Dublin has officially launched the new bar at The Restaurant by Johnnie Cooke.

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news

East of eden Demi Yang, Tourism Ireland; tour guide Min Ling; and Traveler magazine journalists Ms Yi Feng (senior editor), Ms Zhen Chen (editor-in-chief ) and Mr Yao Wei (photographer), during their visit to Lissadell House in Sligo.

Signed, sealed, delivered Professional chefs from Ireland and the UK gathered together at the Waitrose Cookery School in London to prepare their signature dishes for a host of judges in the hopes of one becoming the Ireland and UK finalist in the S.Pellegrino Young Chef 2016. This year’s Ireland and UK finalist was George Kataras of M Threadneedle Street, London, who will now go on to represent Ireland and the UK in the final of the S.Pellegrino Young Chef in Milan on October 13th.

When a plan comes together...

Musgrave MarketPlace, Ireland’s leading wholesale supplier to retail, foodservice and SME businesses has announced a €2.2m upgrade of its Ballymun store, located off St. Margaret’s Road in Dublin.

Light up your life Pro-Light is Ireland’s leading designer and provider of retail, presentation and hospitality lighting. To date Pro-Light has designed and supplied over 300 LED lighting projects in Ireland, within the following market segments: Retail & Presentation; Showrooms & Display; Hospitality & Leisure; Restaurants & Bar; Commercial & Decorative; Internal & External. Pro-light is a Philips certified professional partner.

The write stuff Ireland will host the Travel Classics International writers’ conference in 2017. The announcement was made at this year’s conference, which took place in Switzerland. Regarded by many as the world’s foremost networking event for travel writers and editors, it’s a major coup for Irish tourism that the 2017 conference will take place here. It brings together celebrated editors from a wide range of high profile publications – including Condé Nast Traveler, National Geographic Traveler and Harper’s Bazaar – all of which reach hundreds of thousands of readers across North America, as well as globally. The 2017 conference will take place in Ireland’s Ancient East over four days.

A wild ride Virtual reality (VR) experiences along the Wild Atlantic Way can now be accessed via apps or on desktops. Fáilte Ireland has also unveiled its new 360° views of the Wild Atlantic Way, which will add another level of immersion when visitors research the destination.

BBQ Heroes Eoin O’Flynn, marketing manager, Flogas Ireland, TV chef Rory O’Connell and Grace Cox of Ballymaloe with some little helpers - Ryan, Robin, Eva and Alex Keating - at the launch of the BBQ to Beat Cancer Campaign, in aid of the Marie Keating Foundation.

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appointments

Team effort

John Healy has been appointed General Manager in Suesey Street restaurant and bar, while Graeme Dodrill is the venue’s new chef.

John ‘s experience includes managing Mezzo, Europe’s largest freestanding restaurant, which was designed and owned by Sir Terence Conran, and Dublin’s The Four Seasons. John set up his own catering company in 2012; his clients included the private clubs in the O2 and festival catering.

A native of Tallaght, Graeme went to ITT professional cookery course in 1996. He did his placement in L’Ecrivain and stayed in the restaurant for a year and half. Derry Clarke was a huge inspiration in Graeme’s early years. His next mentor was Aiden Byrne in Peacock Alley, where Graeme spent a year. Next was One Pico where Graeme spent five years under the guidance of Padraic Hayden and Eamon O’Reilly. Before Suesey Street, he was at the helm of Season and Mulberry Gardens.

Conventional approach Convention Centre Dublin (The CCD) has appointed Paul Gallagher as a new Non-Executive Director of The CCD Management Company. “We are very pleased to announce the appointment of Paul Gallagher to The CCD Board”, said Executive Chairman, Dermod Dwyer. “Paul brings a wealth of experience and understanding of the hospitality and tourism sectors, complementing the current board’s expertise.” Gallagher has worked in the hospitality sector for over 27 years with responsibility for hotels in Ireland, the UK and Eastern Europe. Paul is the current Chairman of the Irish Tourist Industry Confederation (ITIC) and of Irish Country Hotels, as well as General Manager of Buswells Hotel.

Call of Duty Joseph Scott Lennon has been appointed Duty Manager at Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel, Killiney, and is responsible for assisting the General Manager with the day to day running of the hotel.

Son of owner, Eithne Fitzpatrick and brother of General Manager, Mark Scott Lennon, Joseph has been working at the hotel since he was 15 years old and has been involved in working within every department in the family run business over the years.

Katie Farrell Appointed as Director of Sales at The Westbury Part of the luxury, Irish-family owned hotel group The Doyle Collection, The Westbury not only surrounds its guests in luxury and style, it offers world class hospitality and a warmth and thoughtfulness that stems from being a much loved family business. For this same passion to deliver excellent guest experiences, Katie Farrell has been appointed as Director of Sales at The Westbury.

Katie joined the sales team at The Westbury during 2014 and brought with her an excellent reputation in the industry based on her guest standard oriented approach, proven over 10 years of working in local and international hotels.

As Director of Sales, Katie will provide strategic leadership for all sales, revenue management, e-commerce and public relations activities and will continue to act as key account manager for Leading Hotels of The World and the American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts programme. Katie was also one of the key driving forces in The Westbury securing a place on the prestigious Virtuoso network in March 2016.

A native of Dublin, Katie holds a Bachelor Degree in Hospitality Management from Dublin Institute of Technology. Katie’s significant international experience with hotels such as the Millennium, New York and The Breakers, Palm Beach, Florida has allowed her to flourish in her role at The Westbury.

Osprey’s new star Peter Brennan has been appointed General Manager at the four star Osprey Hotel + Spa, Naas, Co Kildare, part of the PREM Group.

He joins the hotel from the company’s Benelux division, where he has been Group Operations Manager since 2013.

Peter began his career in the Grand Hotel Malahide before joining Forte Hotels in the UK, where he spent 14 years. He returned to Ireland to manage Fitzpatrick Castle, Dublin, and was part of the team that built Choice Hotels Ireland. From 2007 up to 2013, Peter consulted on hotel projects for developers and financial institutions before joining PREM Group.

Clio O’Gara joins Tierney’s Clio O’Gara, formerly Chief Marketing Officer of The Gleneagle Group, has joined Tierney’s as Head of Hospitality Solutions. Clio will be responsible for driving both the Aloha Point of Sale Systems - the world leader in Restaurant POS technology which is used in over 100,000 restaurant sites worldwide, and Guestline’s tailor-made property solution which offers a full suite of PMS, Channel Distribution and WebSuite Digital Marketing. Clio’s timing in joining Tierney’s is optimal as the marketplace now demands the most up to date data, whereby business can understand their sales and marketing activity, what drives their guest behavior, what creates an opportunity to acquire the guest and delivery repeat business. MD Andy Tierney is delighted with Clio’s appointment which he believes will strengthen the Tierney’s brand across Ireland as the number one IT Solution provider for the Hospitality Industry. “We are very excited by the addition of Clio to our management team. Clio has vast knowledge and experience in the hospitality industry, with a focus on Revenue, Sales and Marketing. Combine these strengths with her love for technology creates a winning combination for the launch of our next generation PMS & POS solutions. I believe that Tierney’s are now the full solution for the Hospitality Industry with the latest state of the art technology and services partnered with 25 years experience, allowing Tierney’s to ensure our clients businesses have the future proofed solution they demand.”

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RAI symposium

RAI Symposium

in the Shelbourne Hotel Following their 45th Annual General Meeting on June 2nd, the Restaurants Association of Ireland (RAI) held a symposium in the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin. The theme was nurturing talent and exploring trends and the speakers gave a range of perspectives on those issues.

Among those speaking were; Niall McKenna of James Street South Group in Belfast, Lars Peder Hedberg, Chairman of the Nordic Region for Worlds 50 Best Restaurants, John Mulcahy, of Failte Ireland and Helena Egan Global Director of Industry Relations in TripAdvisor.

The very newly appointed Minister of State for Tourism and Sport, Patrick O’Donovan opened the symposium emphasising that talent within the industry is responsible for catering to tourism and for the continued development of food tourism in Ireland. Minister O’Donovan pointed out that exploring trends was a key factor in strategic planning in the industry and he praised the significant role the industry had played in the turnaround of the economy.

CEO of the RAI Adrian Cummins, Minister Patrick O’Donovan, President of the RAI Anthony Gray

“Visitors want to experience food reflective of the place they are in. It’s so important to their overall unique experience of a place”, said the Minister. However, he also referred to some shortfalls within the industry and suggested that a combination of approaches is required for further development of these areas. Minister O’Donovan praised the new passport initiative in the Wild Atlantic Way and he said the middle section of the country must now be developed and he referred to Local Authorities as being a key part of that development strategy.

John Mulcahy has responsibility for policy and operations in Food Tourism, Education and Tourist Accommodation Standards in Failte Ireland. John focused on the development of a culinary apprenticeship programme and the collaboration between Failte Ireland, the RAI the Irish Hospitality Federation (IHF), the Education and Training Board of Ireland (ETBI) and others to make that happen. John said “An apprenticeship programme must be industry led. We have been waiting on this for the last 18 months but it’s important that we work with education bodies as they can provide the qualifications. What we have developed is a three-legged pot of industry, education and students, if we are missing one of these pieces we haven’t got it right”.

Lars Peder Hedberg of the Worlds 50 Best Restaurants

Alison Hodgson of HR McDonalds Group John McKenna of The McKenna Guide

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RAI symposium John explained he is hopeful that between 70 and 80 students will begin the two –year apprenticeship programme this autumn. The programme has a dual aspect of education and training with 40% of the programme classroom based and 60% in an employment position. According to John, “I believe this is a game changer in terms of addressing the shortages in the industry and in terms of education within the industry. It is a great opportunity to put culinary education front and centre”.

In terms of addressing staff shortages in the industry, the next speaker, Niall McKenna of James Street South Group, took the initiative in his home town of Belfast and developed his own apprenticeship programme. Born out of Niall’s frustration at not being able to recruit adequately trained staff for his four restaurants, Niall decided to start a training programme himself so that he could hire people with the skills he needed. “Primarily I wanted to get people to love food again and to love the quality of food so the attitude of the trainees is the key for me”.

In 2012 Niall started the apprenticeship programme with eight trainees and he hired three, two of whom are still working with him. The following year he had twelve on the programme and he employed eight and this year he will have sixteen on the programme. Niall runs the programme together with Belfast Metropolitan College but at present there is no government funding for it.

The next speaker, Helena Egan is the Global Director of Industry Relations for TripAdvisor and she gave an overview of Irish restaurants ratings on TripAdvisor and who is doing the rating. TripAdvisor lists over 4 million restaurants worldwide and has approximately 230 contributions every minute. Helena explained that the main elements that affect your restaurant’s place on TripAdvisor are quality, quantity and how new you are to the market.

In Ireland, Dax is the number one restaurant listed on TripAdvisor followed by The Mulberry Garden. Helena reminded everyone that TripAdvisor is a free platform for restaurateurs and that in order to increase your placement engagement is key. In 2016 TripAdvisor launched their certificate of excellence which Helena said is fast becoming a marker that customers are watching out for when they are reviewing restaurants online.

In terms of trends within the industry some key things stood out for this attendee, for example the conflicting trends within the sector at the moment between the trend towards healthy food but also the rise in popularity of products like alcohol infused ice-cream. The crafts drinks space is continuing to explode along with the craft soft drinks market. Alternative venues and pop-up restaurants are a trend that is sticking around as is the development of the wine list to cocktail list to specialised drinks menus for example, the Gin menu.

This symposium provided a diverse and interesting space for the industry to reflect on these trends and others as well as to review shortfalls and of course leave with some food for thought!

Malcolm Bell of Visit Cornwall

According to Niall, “Every year it costs me £50,000 to run the programme but I end up with chefs who are excited about food.

Apprentices are not cheap labour; it’s about developing people and developing chefs. The industry and colleges need to combine; it’s the only way forward”.

Lars Peder Hedberg is the Chairman of the Nordic Region for World’s 50 Best Restaurants and publisher of the White Guide.

During his presentation Lars posed the question “what makes a world class restaurant”? And his answer was, “that’s an impossible question”! This is because so many people disagree on what makes a great restaurant. Lars said that this year the biggest trend he is seeing in the culinary world is Neo-Russian cooking. “White Rabbit”, a restaurant in Moscow is the quickest riser to the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, ever, entering at number 23 this year.

One of the interesting things about the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list is that they have no criteria! However Lars says that in his opinion there are three main elements that he believes are critical to getting on this list. These are; Origin, meaning the origin of the produce used and how local it is, Forward, meaning how innovative the restaurant is in re-creating old recipes and using what has been done before in different ways and finally Beyond, meaning how does the restaurant engage with the ecology around it and the sustainability of food.

Minsiter for Transport, Tourism & Sport Shane Ross

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tourism ireland

Tourism Ireland post-Brexit briefing and update on the British market Since the recent EU referendum in the United Kingdom, Tourism Ireland has been monitoring developments closely, to better understand and plan for the implications of Brexit. Tourism Ireland hosted a Brexit briefing recently for tourism industry leaders. At the meeting, tourism leaders heard Oxford Economics’ latest analysis, topline findings from research conducted by Red C for Tourism Ireland in Britain, an update on the British market performance and an outline of Tourism Ireland’s promotional plans to the end of 2016. Tourism leaders also exchanged their experiences to date.

Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland, said: “Tourism Ireland has been monitoring the possible impacts of Brexit very closely at home and overseas in recent weeks. Although it is still too soon to fully understand the long-term implications for tourism to the island of Ireland, we had a very useful discussion with tourism industry leaders. The British market will remain of significant importance for all of us in the short, medium and long-term. We have committed to continued monitoring of developments over the coming months. But, for now, it is very much business as usual. Tourism Ireland’s €4 million promotional campaign will continue to roll out in Britain from now until the end of the year, to highlight the island of Ireland to prospective visitors and maintain the strong growth we have seen in recent years.”

20+ million Britons see promotion for car touring holidays in Ireland Tourism Ireland teamed up with Irish Ferries to promote car touring holidays along the Wild Atlantic Way and around Ireland’s Ancient East. A joint campaign – targeting our important ‘culturally curious’ audience – reached more than 20 million potential holidaymakers in Britain, reminding them how easy it is to reach Ireland.

The campaign included a partnership with the Guardian online, which featured an article titled “10 stunning spots in Ireland – in pictures” and the chance to win a five-night holiday in Ireland; radio ads on Classic FM, Heart and Smooth Radio, which reached an estimated 2.28 million listeners; ads in national newspapers, including titles like the Daily Mail, Daily Express, Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph and the Mail on Sunday, which were seen by an estimated 14.5 million readers; and online ads on popular sites, as well as ads on Facebook.

Promoting Dublin and the Guinness Storehouse in Italy, France, Spain and the Netherlands Tourism Ireland teamed up with the Guinness Storehouse to highlight Dublin and its top visitor attraction in four important markets – Italy, France, Spain and the Netherlands. The campaign, which reached millions of potential holidaymakers, included online advertising, driving people to a specially-created page on Ireland.com where they could find out about the many great things to see and do in Dublin – and be in with a chance of winning a weekend break in the city and a visit to the Guinness Storehouse. The campaign also included email marketing, publicity and extensive social activity.

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tourism ireland

Ireland feels ‘The Force’ at Star Wars Celebration in London Skellig Michael’s appearance in the most recent instalment of Star Wars presented Tourism Ireland with a truly unique opportunity to highlight the South West and Ireland to fans of the science fiction franchise around the world. And the good news for Irish tourism is that this didn’t signal the end of the Star Wars journey in Ireland. Location scouts were so taken with the Wild Atlantic Way that locations from Cork, Kerry, Clare and Donegal were also selected to appear in the upcoming Star Wars: Episode VIII. To continue to maximise the Star Wars connection with Ireland, Tourism Ireland attended the recent Star Wars Celebration in London. Described as the ‘ultimate fan experience’, it runs over three days each year, attracting tens of thousands of dedicated Star Wars fans from around the world and providing a superb opportunity for Tourism Ireland to promote the Wild Atlantic Way and Ireland.

Emily Dodd, Tourism Ireland; Caroline Boland, Dingle Peninsula Tourism; Vincent O’Keeffe, The Moorings, Portmagee; and John O’Sullivan, The Skellig Experience Visitor Centre, at Star Wars Celebration 2016.

Wild Atlantic Way is “captivating, stimulating and spectacularly unique” – says actor Richard E Grant A new online film starring actor Richard E Grant exploring the Wild Atlantic Way has been unveiled. It’s the third in a series of short films created by Tourism Ireland and Smooth Radio to highlight the island of Ireland to holidaymakers in Britain this year. In the film, viewers see Richard E Grant travel along the Wild Atlantic Way, visiting places like Fanad Head Lighthouse and the Slieve League Cliffs in Co Donegal and Newport and Westport in Co Mayo.

Richard E Grant says that the Wild Atlantic Way is “a route where you can truly lose yourself in the best of ways” and he invites viewers to come and “experience for yourself the beauty and abundance and raw natural drama of the Wild Atlantic Way”.

The campaign – which is being rolled out in two phases – will reach about 5.5 million ‘culturally curious’ holidaymakers across Britain. It’s just one element of Tourism Ireland’s extensive promotional programme aimed at boosting travel to the island of Ireland from Great Britain during 2016.

Tourism Ireland board meets in Drogheda The d Hotel in Drogheda was the venue for the July board meeting of Tourism Ireland. The board members took the opportunity to meet with local tourism operators prior to the meeting, to discuss the tourism season and the extensive promotional programme which Tourism Ireland is undertaking to highlight the island of Ireland around the world this year. Pictured before the board meeting are Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland; Sally-Anne Cooney, Boann Distillery; Ciaran O’Donovan, The d Hotel; and Joan O’Shaughnessy, Vice Chairman of Tourism Ireland.

Richard E Grant, during filming at Slieve League, Co Donegal.

Say cheese! Tourism Ireland and Contiki team up on photo shoot in Ireland Top international travel operator Contiki has been busy capturing lots of great new photos to promote its Ireland itineraries, with support from Tourism Ireland.

The new images will be used by both Contiki and Tourism Ireland to promote holidays to the island of Ireland – both online and in brochures. Contiki offers a range of international tour packages for the 18 to 35 year-old market, five of which include Ireland – so this collaboration is a great opportunity to target our important ‘social energiser’ audience.

Caroline MacCormac, Tourism Ireland; models Matt Mantalvanos, Colleen O’Reilly, Aisling O’Reilly and Brian Rozo; and Rachel Storey and Ed Askey, both Contiki, during the photo shoot at the English Market in Cork.

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my role

A Stallworth of the Irish Hotel Industry

Joseph Downing / The Westbury

Originally from Glengarriff in West Cork, Joseph Downing has been involved in hotels for over 27 years. His professional career started when he was 19 years old but his education in the business started much earlier, in the family run Blue Pool House Hotel.

“So I grew up in a hotel, I was always in the kitchen, there was an Aga, there were cooks and chefs. It was where we had all of our Christmases and all of our birthday parties. Lots of memories.

“It was a country house hotel, so it was like a home in the winter time and then in the summer it became a hotel,”explains Joseph.

The hotel had 24 bedrooms and only three bathrooms, a set up that would not be permitted by todays’ standards.

“I remember one of the Rockefellers out on the landing and he had the most beautiful kind of satin paisley bath robe. I’m not kidding you, he had a minder and he was waiting to use the bath! But on a beautiful chaise lounge!”

“That wouldn’t cut it today but it was kind of acceptable back then. People when they came to Ireland back in 1979 or 1980 kind of thought; well isn’t this quaint.”

“But it was a very beautiful building, lovely furnishings and beautiful paintings, so it had great charm,” says Joseph.

After finishing his leaving cert in 1988, Joseph came to Dublin to interview for The Burlington Hotel with the late great Mr P.V. Doyle.

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“I did the interview in the Montrose hotel with him and he was inspiring.

Back in those days he was an institution in his own way,” explains Joseph.

“The kitchen manager took charge of me initially and I spent six months in stores. The most horrendous job. In those days trainee managers were like cannon fodder, they were the lowest thing in the food chain. I was six months in the meat fridge rotating carcasses of meat in a freezer coat.”

As well as training in all departments of the hotel, Joseph attended day release lectures in Cathal Brugha Street.

Although tough at times, Joseph relished the opportunity and got to meet some very interesting people. He was given the task of looking after Audrey Hepburn when she visited Dublin.

“It would have been around 1989 when she came as a UNCEF children’s ambassador to a big do in the old Burlington. She wore a pink evening gown and I used to have to bring her through the kitchen corridors and into the public areas like the ballroom,” he explains.

Joseph’s father passed away in 1991, and at the tender age of 21 he was given the task of running the family hotel back in Glengarriff. He ran the hotel for six years but was forced to sell up in 1996 due to rising interest rates that made the business unsustainable.

After that Joseph moved with his then fiancée to her home city of Madrid. The couple had met while working in The Burlington. Joseph had completed a TEFL course and taught English among other things during his time in Spain. He returned home in 2006 and found himself working once again for the Doyle Group at the River Lee Hotel in Cork. Starting as a duty manager he worked under the general manager, Ruairi O Conner for

my role a year and a half until he was called into the office one day.

“I was called in on my day off by Ruairi to have a chat. So, I went in quite nervous wondering what was going on. The recession was very much in play at that stage and jobs were scarce. I went in and he said The Westbury in Dublin are looking for someone to give them a dig out for a couple weeks, we’re quiet here, would you be interested? And I said absolutely.”

That couple of days stretched into eight years and Joseph is still in The Westbury in his role as Guest Relations manager.

“The job entails knowing exactly who is in the hotel, who is coming to the hotel and who has been in the hotel. There’s a lot of customer care and there is a lot of prevention and cure,” he explains.

Joseph has a team of three but often finds that if someone contacts him directly, he likes to give them his mobile number and deal with them directly so that they have one point of contact.

“They don’t have to go running from Billy to Jack and they can do it all through me. I’m a kind of fixer, I make things happen. If you want something done quickly I’d be the guy to come to.

“For instance, the other night somebody came up to me at ten to ten and said I need a heat pack. Can you get me one I’m desperate. So, I’m thinking 24 hour pharmacy where? There’s one on O’Connell Street, I know closes at ten. I ran down and just made it and got five different types of heat pack and ran back. They had no idea I had gone out for them myself!

“It’s humbling but I’m delighted to do it and it’s what makes the whole thing work.”

A lot of Joseph’s job is customer care, meeting and greeting people and following up on correspondence with customers. In his opinion, it is the blend of old and new that sets The Westbury apart from other hotels.

“The Westbury was built in 1983 and yet when you walk in, there’s a maturity about it. It has a sense of a bygone age almost. There’s an art deco feel to it. The aesthetic and degree of service is very much old world.

“There’s a degree of escape because it’s such a cocoon of luxury. It’s like a piece of coral and all the people that work here are like living entities growing on that,” he reflects.

It’s evident from Joseph’s eloquence and soft spoken manner that he enjoys interacting with people and thoroughly enjoys his job.

“

It’s a fantastic life working in hotels.

It’s never boring. I’ve never had a boring day at The Westbury.

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”

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