Address by Minister Michael Ahern at the Young Irish Hospitality Institute Conference

Address by Mr Michael Ahern TD, Minister for Trade and Commerce, at the Young Irish Hospitality Institute Conference. In the Maryborough House Hotel, Cork, on Monday 3rd October 2005 at 2pm.

I am delighted to be among this group of young professionals from the Irish hospitality industry at the annual conference of Young IHI.

Although this is the 9^th gathering of this forum, it is the first under your new title of Young Irish Hospitality Institute and represents an opportunity for you to look to new horizons and a bright and confident future.

The role of professional Institutes within the Irish economy is a positive one as it brings together dedicated people, united by their profession rather than by other interests, in an environment that stimulates research, education and debate. These elements have characterised the Irish Hospitality Institute for close on 40 years and are reflected today in the theme of your conference and your choice of topics and speakers.

Throughout the morning you have been discussing aspects of this diverse industry and it is fitting that over lunch you should participate in the launch of ‘Cultural Diversity- a Management Approach’, a report by Detta Melia and Elizabeth Kennedy of Dublin Institute of Technology.

This timely and welcome piece of research highlights the trends driving organisations to use international workers, comments on the impact of the global economy and how Ireland’s economic success has resulted in a need to recruit international workers. The report explores aspects of cultural diversity and examines how this relatively new aspect of our society can be managed within the hospitality services industry. I know that Detta Melia is conducting a workshop on the report this afternoon and I will leave it to her to explain its many interesting findings and recommendations. I would however like to congratulate the authors on a work of outstanding professionalism and objectivity which will be a valuable resource for an industry with a growing multicultural profile.

Yours is also an industry which has seen spectacular growth over the past decade and one which now offers exciting and interesting career paths for young managers. Your skills as hospitality managers enable you to gain valuable experience in the global industry and it is commendable that you have invited practitioners who have worked in many parts of the world to share their experiences with you to-day within the conference theme of ‘Successful Irish Hospitality, Globally Grown.’

The Irish hospitality sector has indeed experienced remarkable success in recent times. We have seen total employment within the sector grow to 150,000 and some €2.2bn invested in hotels and tourism attractions between 2000 and 2004. This investment reflects the confidence of hoteliers and developers in the future of the sector, and this confidence is shared by the Government, which has set ambitious targets for tourism growth over the coming decade. I am delighted to note that the industry is on course to achieve its goal of doubling tourism revenue to €6bn and growing overseas visitor numbers to 10 million by 2012 and that this growth will be stimulated by major state projects such as the National Conference Centre and the new terminal at Dublin Airport.

The latest figures from the Central Statistics Office indicate that this will be yet another year of growth for the industry. Overall visitor numbers grew by four per cent in the first half of 2005 with the European market showing encouraging buoyancy and visitors from the key British market also up on the equivalent period of 2004.

Attracting visitors to Ireland is however just one part of the tourism equation. The other is to deliver an experience, which will be memorable and will encourage visitors to return and to recommend an Irish holiday to their family and friends. In this area Ireland has performed remarkably well in recent times with 97% of respondents to a recent Fáilte Ireland visitor survey saying that they would recommend an Irish holiday to friends. While this is a level of endorsement of which any country would be proud, we cannot be complacent and it is vital that we continue to offer visitors those experiences which they take home as happy memories.

The natural warmth and friendliness of the Irish people is of course one of our most appreciated natural assets as are the beauty of our countryside, our relatively relaxed lifestyle and our rich historical and cultural heritage. To these must be added however a professionalism across a wide spectrum of services including all aspects of the hospitality industry.

For this reason it is of prime importance that your industry attracts, develops and retains young professional managers who will deliver Best Practice in our hotels and restaurants. You are the first generation to live in an Ireland of full employment and one in which major industries compete to recruit the best and brightest of the younger generation. The hospitality industry therefore must compete effectively with other sectors such as IT and Financial Services, in becoming the career of choice for school leavers and graduates. Fortunately the industry has much to offer in terms of career paths, working conditions and remuneration and has the support of Fáilte Ireland, the Tourism Development Authority, in the areas of recruitment, training and career development. As a new academic year gets under way, so too does the Fáilte Ireland recruitment programme which promotes the attractions of a tourism industry career to second level students and career guidance teachers. Fáilte Ireland works closely with colleges who offer catering and hospitality courses and provides training for job seekers in its own centres. It also provides consultancy and in-company training for a wide spectrum of tourism enterprises.

The concept of life long learning and career development has been embraced by Fáilte Ireland and one example of its initiatives in this area is the successful Fáilte Ireland Management Development Programme, which commences this month. Developed and delivered in association with Cornell University in the United States, the programme is specially tailored for busy tourism and hospitality managers focusing on the key areas of Operations Management, Finance, Human Resource Management, Strategy & Marketing and Management Practices. Spread over six months, each module includes a residential workshop, web based learning and business based projects with one workshop based at Cornell University.

 Last year Fáilte Ireland also launched Optimus, a total company intervention model designed to achieve business excellence in the hospitality and tourism industry. Optimus has been developed by Fáilte Ireland to support industry in addressing the ongoing challenge of competitiveness, particularly at the level of the enterprise. It comprises a series of business interventions with three separate but progressive levels of continuous improvement focusing on the customer, the operation and, ultimately, the entire organisation.

These are just two examples of a wide range of services available to the industry through Fáilte Ireland, whose objective in providing these services is to develop successful tourism enterprises staffed by skilled practitioners and professional managers. In this respect its objectives closely mirror those of your Institute.

I was pleased to note that the Irish Hospitality Institute has also embarked on a programme of development and innovation. Your new title and branding appeals to the wider hospitality industry constituency and the Strategic Review that, you have initiated will result in a clear vision for the future.

Young IHI is a particularly dynamic group within the Institute and continues a tradition established by the young and enterprising hotel managers who established the Institute in 1966. Those young managers, many of whom went on to become industry leaders, lived their professional lives in an environment, which contrasts sharply with the dynamic and competitive industry which exists to-day. They were however professional, progressive and dedicated to creating a better industry through professional development, education and debate.

I know that you, as their successors, also embrace those principles and through your activities in Young IHI will make a positive contribution towards the further development of Irish tourism. I welcome you to Cork, the European City of culture and I hope that your deliberations will be stimulating, participative, and educational.

Ends TC 177