PRESIDENT'S NOTE
I hope this note finds you well and seeing as we're at the end of January, hopefully most of you have stuck to your new year's resolutions. At the IHI, it's business as usual planning plenty of events to facilitate networking and training opportunities
I am delighted to share that the first IHI event of 2023 will take place in Thomond Park on 23rd February, where I'll have the honor of speaking with Munster Rugby Head Coach, Graham Rowntree. This is undoubtedly an event not to miss, so if you have not booked your place, please contact Cynthia cynthia.oneill@ihi to secure your spot.
Following that Munster event, the IHI will head over to Connaught, where the IHI Hospitality Business Management Game will take place on the 5th and 6th of March The Game, now in its 38th year challenges teams of students currently studying at the BA programme level within the Tourism & Hospitality Management schools. The Game tests the student's business acumen, and management skills while providing great learning. The Game also allows them an excellent networking experience
Following the Game, the IHI will host its annual student seminar 'Tourism & Hospitality, Your Own Expedition' at 14.30 pm. This year, as in previous years, we are excited to welcome industry professionals to share with attending students a bit about their own careers in hospitality and tourism, career highlights and a little about their current roles.
Speakers will also join me in a Q&A The student seminar is a fantastic opportunity to meet our future young managers and I would encourage all our members to support the very talented teams competing in this year's game by attending the seminar.
Following the seminar, the winners of the Game will be announced and a celebratory and networking evening will take place at 6pm If you can't make the seminar, I highly encourage you to attend the evening event as this will not only support to the competing teams and winners but it will also allow you to meet with industry colleagues and friends
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Dear Member,
Also, in case you missed it, our new partnership with the Irish Management Institute (IMI) along with part funding from Restaurant & Hospitality Skillnet now allows us to share a range of new programmes delivered by the IMI 1.
Advanced Negotiation Skills: https://www.rhskillnet.ie/training/advancednegotiation-skills-15th-march-2023
Change Management: https://www.rhskillnet.ie/training/change-management-2
Communicating for performance:
Finance for Non-Financial Managers: https://www rhskillnet ie/training/finance
Front Line Management: https://www.rhskillnet.ie/training/front-line-management7th-march-2023
Strategic Management: https://www.rhskillnet.ie/training/strategic-peoplemanagement
To register for a course, or should you have any questions, please get in touch with cynthia.oneill@ihi.ie
Fáilte Ireland's online training is also available to you this February;
Marketing on a Shoestring Wednesday, 1st Feb | 10 00am - 12 30pm
Meeting Your Employer Obligations Tuesday, 7th Feb | 10 00am - 11 00am
Introduction to Customer Database Management Thursday, 9th Feb | 10.00am12.00pm
Pricing Your Offers, Contracting and Negotiating your B2B Sales Tuesday, 14th Feb | 10.00am - 1.00pm
There certainly is plenty to keep you going over the next couple of months
As always, if you have any questions about the above-mentioned, please do not hesitate to contact the IHI Team.
All the best, Brian
Bowler IHI President
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At Booking.com Public Affairs, we are equally passionate about travel and the policies that shape it This is why we wanted to share the inaugural edition of Check-in
Check-in is a brand new magazine that explores ideas at the intersection of society, technology and travel. Our ambition is to facilitate an exchange of ideas about the future of travel and how to make it most impactful for society.
The first edition is dedicated to Europe’s ambitious Twin Transition We see this not only as a policy framework, but as the guiding light that will illuminate the path towards a sustainable and technologically resilient future. Inside the magazine, you will find bite-sized travel sector news, thoughts on the future developments from our CEO, Glenn Fogel, plus features diving deep into sustainability and digitalisation.
Available to read in English, Dutch, German, French, Spanish and Italian Click the appropriate link below to Check-in with us today
Check-in: A magazine on the future of travel from Booking.com | by Booking.com Public Affairs
Dec, 2022 | A World Worth Experiencing
Check-in:Amagazineonthefutureoftravel fromBooking.com 11
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EFFORT-LESS REVENUE MANAGEMENT
The benefits of a revenue management system across the business
A revenue management system - or RMS - is not just for revenue departments. Its blend of data-led insights and actions benefit revenue and profitability goals across a hotel’s business.
Whether an independent operation, branded or cluster of properties, hospitality organisations save valuable time and earn incremental revenue with an RMS. Fit for every accommodation-based company, from five-star luxury hotel groups to short-stay rentals, camping and non-traditional accommodation offerings - an RMS benefits the entire team:
●Owners gain the resources to make informed decisions for expansion, product diversification or to increase asset valuation, and attract investors.
●Hospitality executives are supported by deeper insights for increasing the value of an organisation that requires more capital, or to improve efficiency.
●General managers make more informed decisions that reduce costs and increase revenue.
●Revenue managers save extra time to focus on more strategic, revenue enhancing initiatives by automating time consuming tasks like pricing and data entry.
In many hospitality businesses, a lack of revenue management knowledge and practices limits profitability opportunities. The RMS acts as a virtual assistant to crunch numbers and provide insights delivering visibility of business performance for the entire team. This enables them to learn how to price products across the property, whether that’s attracting a non-resident to the spa or a guest booking for early dining.
How hotel groups prosper
Benjamin Caprini, revenue manager at the Société des Bains de Mer (SBM), an independent casino and luxury hotel group in Monte Carlo, was pleasantly surprised by the impact of an RMS: “Every day is different, and the challenges continue to evolve. When we want to change something, we need to do so as a cohesive group versus making individual property decisions. It is nice to work like this as we have a clearer strategy on how best to optimise our profitability.”
“It’s really important to have an RMS, and it’s a common misconception that only big chains use iton the contrary, independent hotels can greatly benefit,” explained Caprini.
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The sales and revenue manager at Amazing Evolution, Pedro Pedroso, agrees. The collection of 21 independent full-service properties in Portugal has a small, centralised revenue team managing a fast-growing portfolio, “We are a small team, so it was important to have a reliable system that we knew would help us save time, access the right data, and make the right decisions, faster.”
With too much data for Pedroso’s team to gather and make efficient, effective decisions from, he sought an automated RMS to act as a single source of trust, providing increased access to data across multiple properties and free the commercial team to focus on growing partnerships and the portfolio.
Independents alleviate limited staffing resources
Freeing staff from manual tasks is an increasingly important part of an RMS; accommodation providers worldwide are facing staff shortages, putting an unnecessary pressure on existing staff.
At The Dewberry Charleston (USA), general manager Kristie Rasheed faced this challenge of staff shortages and time-consuming manual pricing processes. Rasheed installed IDeaS’ G3 RMS: “The time-savings from rate loading alone is endless, much less the data-driven intelligence. Charleston is a high-demand, premium market, and IDeaS makes it possible for us to maintain a competitive advantage under the full range of market conditions.”
She credits IDeaS with achieving a new threshold for staffing efficiency and time-savings without sacrificing precision and performance. “We are still in the system daily but only for short periods of time, giving us far more bandwidth for strategic planning. I can let G3 RMS run on autopilot when needed and don’t have to constantly worry about the decisions it’s making.”
Refocusing revenue managers
A common misconception is that RMS will replace revenue managers. The myth busting reality is far from this - a market-leading platform such as IDeaS G3 RMS is designed to supplement a human’s thought processes, not replace it. An automated RMS works within business rules a revenue leader sets, responding 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to any alterations in market conditions to ensure your property is competitive, whilst also aligned to your overall business targets.
Enrique Pacheco, revenue manager at Mandeville Hotel, noted how IDeaS’ G3 RMS was able to fulfil a key part of the property’s revenue strategy: “If IDeaS G3 RMS detects high demand in a certain room type - for example, with superior doubles - it will increase the price for that specific room type but leave deluxe rooms at the same rate. This seems obvious because this is what yielding is about, but no other system offered this functionality.”
Through dynamic pricing, driven by a number of factors such as competitor activity, local events and a hotel’s own pace, an RMS is able to reprice in real-time and encourage guests to book other room types that are not moving, thereby avoiding overbooking in room categories.
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What would otherwise be a time-consuming manual task for a revenue manager, with hours of researching rates and data entry of various influencing factors, becomes an intelligent, automated business tool with an RMS. The right RMS is designed to help the revenue manager focus more on revenue strategy rather than day-to-day rate changing – it allows the revenue manager to excel and allow them to work more efficiently.
Why choose an RMS?
The key benefits of an RMS to a hospitality business include versatile pricing, proactive forecasting, manage by exception (removing the need to update rates manually across multiple selling channels), and maximising groups - as well as time saved by reducing manual, repetitive tasks.
“I used to waste a lot of time on data entry and had limited data to work with. I now live in the G3 world with a one-stop-shop, clear view of demand. Having an automated RMS has really helped me strategise more,” said Kelly Gattis, director of sales and revenue at the Sunset Tower Hotel (Hollywood, California).
At Norway’s Lily Country Club, Christopher Gundersen, director of revenue and distribution, selected IDeaS as the best solution to proactively make “the right decisions to maximise revenue possibilities. The automated system is easy to integrate, and allows for much more seamless distribution, more reliable forecasting, and more accurate pricing out in the market.”
For over 30 years, IDeaS has been helping hospitality businesses of all sizes and types maximise their revenue performance. Their solutions transform data into clear, actionable insights, enabling clients to quickly and confidently price, forecast, and report while improving business performance. An RMS should be user-friendly, insightful, and profitable - a careful bundle that IDeaS has crafted using decades of industry and technology experience. Discover more at ideas.com
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HOTEL & CATERING OUTLOOK 2023
The data gathered for our most recent Hospitality salary guide shows some interesting information along with large wage increases in certain areas, particularly in the area of Chefs. Statistics point to the fact that the largest sector with vacant positions across 2022 was the hospitality industry. Long before the Covid 19 pandemic, the industry was facing a shortage of Chefs and the big question was how to address this.
To put it simply, people did not want to enter an industry that is hands-on and physical while receiving a relatively low salary in comparison to other, similar laborious sectors. Towards the end of lockdowns and restrictions during Covid 19, the complexion of Hospitality had been forever changed and this led to a mass exodus of industry professionals into other career paths. We tend to believe it was because of uncertain times during the pandemic, but in reality, the pre-existing work conditions and salaries were a huge factor, leading to a steady decline of chefs entering the sector.
As a result, rates of pay from entry-level commis Chefs all the way to Chef de Partie have increased and the average Chef de Partie salary will soon reach approximately €40,000 per year to try to attract & retain talent. This is a more realistic salary when taking into account the increased cost of living and the hands-on strenuous work in comparison to the average wage of similar labour intensive industries.
Overall, the staffing situation in hospitality is quite dire and the increases that are being paid to attract new hires and retain current staff are putting businesses under severe pressure. With the national minimum wage increasing to €11.30 in January coupled with the statutory sick pay bill that will see all employees receive three days in 2023, five days in 2024, seven days in 2025 and ten days in 2026, there is no end in sight in the short to medium term for the industry. Some clients contacted during the course of this survey have been trying to do new things to help attract and retain candidates, the four day week for example would be very attractive for people working in hotels and quite easy to manage in certain areas as having a seven day a week operation means it is feasible, however the shortage of staff in the market place have hindered this as people were signing up to a four day week but then being called in at the last minute to fill the gaps.
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WHERE WILL STAFF COME FROM?
Some Job boards and the Stamp 2 visa issue are two important topics worth mentioning. Certain client surveys reported that when advertising jobs for various roles, there would be up to 200 applications submitted (which sounds great right?). However, when you look at the applications in various circumstances, 189 out of those 200 applicants were coming from outside the EU and had no chance of getting a visa even if the skills that they had listed were a perfect match, and in a time when the jobs boards are increasing their charges at an exorbitant rate, the relevance of applications in many situations is lower than ever seen before.
Subsequently, the stamp 2 students are back in force with more than 35,000 having returned since covid restrictions ended. This has given a bit of relief to the workforce along with the increase of Ukrainians that has now started to slow down due to lack of accommodation.
However, the way the Government has structured the stamp 2 working hours from September each year until the 15th of December, it means that the students can only work 20 hours a week. With this being the busiest time of the year in the retail and hospitality industry. It makes absolutely no sense and again our MD, Shane McLave, has called on the government to see sense and extend the permitted hours up to 30 hours per week to help both employers and Stamp 2 students who are struggling like the rest of us to meet rising costs.
In short, the current market in Hospitality is very much a candidate-driven market, and employers should take heed and try their best to look after current employees before they are tempted to go elsewhere. Covid may seem like a thing of the past, but one thing that has stuck with many candidates is the importance of work-life balance and the significance of feeling valued and appreciated.
If you wish to discuss the findings of this guide or how we can assist with your recruitment needs, please feel free to contact us at www.excelrecruitment.com. Alternatively, you can call us on 01 871 7676 or email Shane at shane@excelrecruitment.com.
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Sodexo Veganuary data shows demand for plantbased dishes in the workplace grew in 2022
The demand for plant-based dishes in company restaurants is growing yearly as workplace services provider Sodexo Ireland marks Veganuary 2023 with food data results from 43 of its client sites in Ireland. Approximately 21,600 vegetarian or vegan meals were bought on those sites between January and November 22, representing a thriving 8.5% of sales, up from 5% in 2021.
Vegetarian and vegan dishes purchased on client sites in Northern Ireland remained steady at 6% of sales for both years.
Sodexo offers vegan and vegetarian main courses, grab and go snacks and sandwiches throughout the year. The survey showed that demand for plant-based food options is greatest during the summer months, but December also has a strong showing.
Sodexo has long been committed to providing more vegan and vegetarian meal options to suit the changing demands of its customers. As part of its Social Impact Pledge, the organisation is focused on increasing the uptake of sustainable meal options by promoting and raising awareness of sustainable plant-based choices to its clients. The organisation continues to develop and expand its plant-based meal options to enable its customers to make more sustainable food choices.
Vegan options offered by Sodexo include lentil celeriac chestnut pie, potato mixed bean chilli, tofu summer tart, Southern Indian vegan chickpea curry, vegan mushroom burger, vegan chicken nuggets, aubergine masala and many more.
Claire Atkins-Morris, Director of Corporate Responsibility at Sodexo, said: “Whether people are vegan, vegetarian, or just want to try something new, it's great to see that more and more customers are trying plant-based meals across our sites. This really demonstrates a shift in consumer awareness, a wider range of options and a marketplace responding.
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“We are a proud supporter of Veganuary, and our community of chefs are encouraging more customers to try our plant-based meals by developing delicious vegan and vegetarian recipes that show the variety of meal options people have at our client sites. As part of our Net Zero commitment, we have set ourselves the goal of increasing the number of plant-based meals and recipes our clients choose from to 33% by 2025.”
Toni Vernelli, Head of Communication & Marketing at Veganuary added: “We're delighted to see Sodexo reporting an increase in sales of vegan and vegetarian meals across their UK and Ireland client sites. Veganuary is here to support anyone who wants to try being vegan, but it makes our job a lot simpler when organisations like Sodexo are offering delicious, nutritious, and easily accessible options.”
Sodexo Ireland Sodexo Ireland is part of the global Sodexo Group, a world leader in delivering services that improve the quality of life to clients in business and industry, education, financial, pharma and healthcare. These include food services, infrastructure build, facilities and estate management, optimising the workplace experience, wellness experiences, personal and homecare services.
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