Contd. from page 8

Improved access out of London, in particular, is also making a difference. “We are seeing a lot more short break business”, says Francis. As a result, the American percentage of The Park’s guest list has declined from the 70s to 63%, while UK visitors now account for close on 20%.

SÁMAS has also extended The Park’s season. Traditionally, the hotel closed its doors at the end of October, opened up briefly for the Christmas season, and then shut down again until closer to Easter. Now it stays open at weekends through the winter. For most of those drawn to Kenmare by SÁMAS, this is a destination spa. Many will never see the Ring of Kerry or sample the delights of Waterville golf course.

The spa offers a choice of 60 treatments. The minimum session is three hours and within that clients get to choose which treatments they want from rock sauna, tropical mist shower, cold mist and outdoor vitality pool to massage and reflexology treatments, hot stone therapy, reiki and traditional massage as well many different facials. Each treatment room is built to soundproofing levels of recording studios and clients can listen to music or natural sounds on special headphones in the recreation room. Each treatment includes time spent in a steam room or sauna, an outdoor plunge pool, and a relaxation room for after one’s massage. Couples have the use of large suites with their own plunge pools.

The Park has a deliberately old fashioned feel, with its open fires, antique furniture, dimly lit corridors and landings and large high ceilinged rooms with dark furnishings and heavy drapes. By contrast, the spa has a totally contemporary feel. Designed by Michelle Sweeney of Oppermann Associates in Dublin, it’s a spectacular building with a light filled reception area and down below a floor with a darkened hallway leading to spacious dimly lit and sound proofed treatment rooms.

Visitors journey down a long corridor that echoes with the sound of running water. This comes from a wall of running water beside the staircase leading up to the reception area, which has a wall of glass looking out over the woodland. The spa is for hotel guests only – there is no outside membership.

The Park Hotel Kenmare is a delight. This 19th century Victorian building was built in 1897 by the Great Southern and Western Railway Company to accommodate passengers visiting the southwest. The location was chosen for its stunning views, proximity to the town and parkland setting.

In the late 1950’s the company added 36 bedrooms. It was sold to a Swiss consortium in 1980 and refurbished. It reopened as the Park Hotel Kenmare under the direction of Francis Brennan who six years later purchased the hotel.

Since then he has firmly established its reputation as one of Ireland’s premier awardwinning hotels. His brother John became General Manager in 1994 and has, arguably, been the driving force behind SÁMAS.

As part of the on-going development of www.irelandhotels.com, travel agents can now earn commission from bookings made on the website.

This new initiative delivers bookings directly from travel agencies at significantly lower commission costs than many other distribution channels.

Travel agents will be able to book rooms and packages for hotels and guesthouses through a secure login facility on the website.

All bookings will be paid for by a credit card held by the travel agent. When an agent makes a booking they will receive immediate confirmation of the booking by e-mail. Bookings will be clearly identified as travel agency bookings and the amount to be debited to the travel agent’s credit card will be clearly stated.

The booking engine automatically calculates commission and bookings will be delivered to properties less 10% commission for the travel agent. The total commission due on travel agency bookings is 14%. The booking engine commission of 3% will be paid monthly (as at present), and an additional 1% commission covers credit card validation and administration.

This new initiative is being promoted to travel agents in the US through the ASTA network and directly to the Shamrock Club in the US. Similar promotions will take place to promote this facility to both UK and European agents in the coming months.

For almost 40 years, Richardson Insurances Limited, has specialised in tailoring insurance packages for niche markets. Insurance costs have been a major expense to the hotel industry in recent years, and while the introduction of the smoking ban and new liquor licensing laws have all contributed to lower turnover, the cost of running a hotel business has not reduced! Recognising this, Richard Insurances Ltd. recently introduced the following benefits: reduced rates by up to 50% in some cases, further reductions by introducing no claim bonus, easy payment plan and a three year premium deal.

For more information contact: Joe O’Rourke, Tel: 01 2834155

Celtic is family owned and specialises in providing solutions for the hotel industry in Ireland. Celtic is the leading supplier of bed and table linen, workwear garments, dustmat services and cabinet roller towels. Celtic also provides hotel textiles, janitorial supplies and paper to many fine hotels in Ireland.

For more information contact: Celtic Linen, Martin Murphy, Tel: 1890 235842, email: sales@celticlinen.ie or Celtic Group, Hugo Malone, Tel: 1800 441133, email: sales@transpanhawke.com

IMRO is a national organisation that administers the performing right in copyright music in Ireland on behalf of its members – songwriters, composers and music publishers. IMRO’s function is to collect and distribute royalties arising from the public performance of copyright works. IMRO is a not-for-profit organisation.

The organisation is also prominently involved in the sponsorship and promotion of music in Ireland. IMRO is constantly working on raising awareness of the implications of the public use of music in terms of royalties due, including the sponsorship of prizes for excellence in legal, marketing and hotel management studies in various colleges and universities in Ireland.

For more information contact: Patrick Kelly, Tel: 01-6614844, email: info@imro.ie

Ecolab is Ireland’s leading provider of total hygiene solutions to the hotel industry, available 24-7-365, supplying customers with peace of mind when it comes to cleanliness and hygiene. The company’s unique Value Added Programme includes regular documented service reports, a choice of phosphate free products, customised kitchen hygiene plans and comprehensive training programmes, all tailored to satisfy the customer’s individual needs.

For more information contact: The Ecolab Customer Service Team, Tel: 01 2763 500, email: infoireland@ecolab.com

MRA is one of Ireland’s leading consultancy organisations providing user friendly HACCP systems that are easy to understand and simple to implement. MRA is the sole provider of Ireland’s only paper free, portable computerised HACCP monitoring system.

Health and safety support includes the development of safety statements, the performance of risk assessments and third party audits of existing management systems. The full support package includes accredited training, full laboratory backup and experienced Environmental Health Officers that will liaise with enforcement officers on client’s behalf.

For more information contact: Martin Roper Tel: 045-876134, email: info@haccpireland.com / www.haccpireland.com

In 2003 the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) and the 10 health boards began a national campaign aimed at increasing the number of businesses meeting their legal obligation to have a food safety management system based on the principles of HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point).

A comparison of the assessment of compliance in hotels before and after this 12 month campaign revealed a doubling in the level of compliance. Assessment involved looking at HACCP under three headings:

– hazard analysis (i.e. identifying what can go wrong)

– identifying and controlling critical control points (CCPs) (i.e. planning to prevent things going wrong which are cirtical to ensuring food safety) and

– verification (i.e. checking you are doing what you planned to do).

At the end of the campaign:

– 45% of businesses were assessed to be compliant with the hazard analysis element of HACCP, 43% had commenced compliance and 12% had no evidence of compliance.

– 45% were compliant with identifying and controlling CCPs, 49% had commenced compliance and 5% had no evidence of compliance.

– While only 27% were compliant with verifying that the system was working as it was it was planned, 47% had commenced compliance and 26% had no evidence of compliance.

In conclusion, hotels have made tremendous headway in the 12 months. Properties who have implemented systems are urged to ensure that their premises maintain and in particular improve on the verification element. Hotels in the process of designing and implementing systems need to keep the momentum going and properties with no systems must start.

For more details on HACCP see www.fsai.ie/industry/haccp/industry

As we approach winter, we can continue to face many challenges including the forthcoming budget, recruitment, the 9.00 p.m. ban on children, and the clarification of the CSO figures.

The extension of the 9.00 pm ban on children in bars to 10.00 p.m. during the summer months by Minister McDowell is to be welcomed, but does not go far enough. The issue is a yearround one and we are continuing to work with his Department for a solution that will address the Minister’s concerns and, at the same time, allow families to enjoy themselves in our hotels in a responsible way.

We recently had the launch of the 2004-2005 edition of “Get a Life . . . in Tourism”. This magazine, aimed at encouraging second-level students to consider a career in tourism, has been distributed to career guidance teachers throughout the secondary school system nationwide. It is vital for the continued healthy growth of our industry that we, the membership of the Federation, do everything we can to encourage the promotion of careers in our industry, i.e. via Branch initiatives and by co-operating with Fáilte Ireland in its endeavours to promote our industry as a worthwhile and rewarding career choice.

If the visitor numbers are to grow as outlined in New Horizons for Irish Tourism, we need these bright young people coming into our wonderful industry.

We have completed and delivered our prebudget submission to the Minister for Finance, Brian Cowen TD. It is absolutely essential that all of us, the members of the IHF, are talking to our public representatives at local level and advising them of our issues. The competitiveness of our industry will be significantly assisted provided we have:-

• A VAT regime that allows VAT on business expenditure in our hotels and guesthouses to be refunded;
• A VAT regime that reduces the VAT rate to 10% over a reasonable time frame;
• An equitable system of local authority charges and, in the meantime, these inequitable charges capped at 50% of the rate of inflation;
• The provision of an additional €15m per year in marketing support over the next three years.

I am asking all IHF members to make sure their public representatives are well briefed on these issues. This is about the future of our industry.

The debate about the CSO statistics for visitor numbers and the reality of the real tourism figures and revenue on-the-ground continues. It is refreshing to note that the mainstream media are at last beginning to decipher the difference between the two, and that there is an acknowledgement within the Department of Arts, Sport & Tourism that the reality on-theground is a very patchy season with a significant majority of the sector saying that business was, at best, on a par with or worse than 2003. This clarification of the figures for our industry is greatly assisted and would not happen without the Tourism Barometer survey compiled by Fáilte Ireland.

Richard Bourke

President

Many of today’s hotel guests do not use hotel phones, both because of the proliferation of mobile phones and due to uncertainty over the cost of landline calls.

The majority of Irish hotels charge very reasonable rates for phone calls that are only slightly higher than standard eircom charges. For guests who are turning to their mobiles to make phone calls overseas this represents a valuable opportunity for hotels to re-educate their guests and save them a lot of money.

Certain types of calls are always going to be made: “We arrived safely”, “My return flight is scheduled to arrive at 10 o’clock”, “The sales meeting went well”, “Let me say good night to the kids” etc. So hotels need to ensure they are offering guests attractive rates to encourage them to use the hotel phone to make those necessary calls.

Recommendation: Examine the rates you charge and ask a few questions: How do they compare with mobile roaming rates? Can I use the rates I charge to save customers money?

Tip: Your eircom account manager can help you with this.

This competitiveness can be promoted on the hotel website, brochures and in hotel bedrooms beside the phone. By removing the uncertainty of unknown charges customers will feel reassured and comfortable using the hotel phone while generating more revenue for the business.