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The Irish Hospitality Institute has outlined its Objectives & Goals 2012-2014 in a comprehensive document, which has been circulated to all Members. This Strategic Plan developed by the Irish Hospitality Institute represents a Road Map for the Institute for the years 2012-2014. It sets out clear goals and the specific strategies, which will be employed to achieve them and is designed to create a new and invigorated Institute.
Below is a description of each of the main points of the Strategic Plan.
All member offerings will be reviewed to identify the tangible elements in order to ensure maintaining existence of current members but also the introduction of new members with a regional representative achieved. Membership categories and packages will be considered to streamline offerings and target specific target markets in a wider membership base. New offerings & affinity programmes will be considered to ensure real benefit and return for loyal members of the Institute.
Capitalise on the new look IHI website and Ezine and consider additional portals for communications to a wider sector audience to generate new membership. Agree a strategy for all communications and consider possibilites for income generation, information sources and general advertisement options relevant to members specifically Trade & Patrons. Finalise a campaign for social media through the IHI website including the members' only zone to facilitate databases, internal discussion boards and CPD Professional Development Plans.
Maintain and enhance the Diversity Awards programme aligned to Industry guidelines and increase participation in each category of award for good practice. Consider additional categories to ensure a wider sector representation. Consider opportunities to ensure an inclusion programme of IHI in all calendar activities addressing wider issues of CSR.
Focus all communidations at wider industry representation using various communication portals. Enhance online presence for promotion of all events well in advance to facilitate and increase participation through bookings on line. Promotion of all event pre and post and where feasible profile member participation. Develop and promote annual calendar of activity at the beginning of each year and offer special discounts to loyal paid up members of the Institute. Focus on information source and networking as the core of each activity.
Develop joint collaborations of activity for the benefit of all members while contribution and access to funding opportunities. Focus alliances to ensure industry best practice of partners through information sharing and development of programmes endorsed by key industry partners as standard. Organise events specific to Patrons of the Institute and site visits to ensure participation for the benefit of our partners.
Consider other potential alliances within a wider context of the sector.
Focus on membership at all levels generating finances for the Institute in a difficult business climate. Consider payment plans and offers for loyal paid up members while facilitating online bookings. Develop full financial forecast for all activities in advance to ensure fair charges for members for each event whilte ensuring all events breakeven at a minimum. Maintain accounting procedures presenting full monthly management accounts against budget and previous year to allow council make realistic decisions to make recommendations for financial stability. Review all internal procedures & costs to ensure economies of scale are greater work efficiency within the team. Maintain tight procedures for debtors and restricted access to all unpaid members for all events and benefits.
The business world that professional hospitality managers operate in today requires that all managers at all levels continue to develop their knowledge and skills in line with changing practices and developments in their industry. Professional managers take charge of their own development and manage it to ensure that their skills and knowledge are continously updated regularly.
The Irish Hospitality Institute is the professional body for managers in the hospitality industry in Ireland. The role of the Institute is to foster, facilitate and promote professionalism amongst hospitality managers in the industry.
Key Benefits of the IHI CPD
- Clear Competitive edge & employment opportunity
- National & International Industry Recognition
- Improvement of Skill levels on a continous basis
- Requirements encourage active industry participation in key events
- Increase Personal Profile.
To launch formal CPD programme for members for the first time in the Irish Hospitality Institutes history. To encourage all members to take responsibility for their own professional development through a dedicated programme of events and activities that strengthens each member's management competencies on a continuous basis. This will be achieved through identifying and planning a set of annual activities such as attending hospitality industry learning events, training and development opportunities and participating in industry related education and research opportunities. The core of how this will be managed by the individual is through an online PDP Personal Develoment Plan and this plan will be verified and accredited by the Irish Hospitality Institute on an annual basis.
The aim of the Institutes CPD programme is to encourage all members to maintain an annual PDP and CDP points certification, thus promoting continued development of professional standards with the Irish hospitality industry.
IHI Continuous Professional Development Standards
-Maintain a continuous, up to date and accurate record of CPD activities
-Attend official IHI CPD learning events or IHI CPD certified learning events
-Demonstrate evidence of further training & development that is relevant to your job role and updating your own skills.
-Demonstrate evidence of prior learning and experience in your related management discipline
-Demonstrate evidence of further research in areas related to your management discipline
-Attain the required level of IHI CPD points on a yearly basis.
What happy couples from all over Ireland have known for generations is now official- Harvey’s Point Country Hotel in Donegal has been voted ‘Best Wedding Venue in Ireland’.
Recognition came at the third annual WeddingsOnline.ie Awards at which Harvey’s Point was named ‘Overall Wedding Venue of the Year 2012.’ The award was the outcome of voting by 17,000 Brides and Grooms nationwide who chose their Top 50 Venues. The winners were then selected by an expert panel of judges based on the quality of their service and the ‘real wedding experience.’
Deirdre McGlone (third from left) , hotelier, Harvey’s Point Country Hotel, Donegal is pictured with the ‘Overall Wedding of the Year 2012’ award at the third annual WeddingsOnline.ie Awards in the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Dublin. Pictured with Deirdre are (from left) Paul Montgomery, Christopher Mc Menamin, Sara McCormack, Samantha McNulty, Ann Marie Gallagher and Paul Mahon.'
‘We are thrilled and honoured to be chosen for this award’, said Harvey’s Point hotelier Deirdre McGlone.
‘I remember with great joy my own wedding reception in our family hotel and since then my husband Marc and I have sought to create the perfect wedding for every Bride and Groom.’
Harvey’s Point Country Hotel offers a unique wedding experience that ticks all the boxes. Its idyllic location on the shores of Lough Eske in the shadow of the Bluestack Mountains provides a perfectly romantic setting. The hospitality of the Gysling family and the expertise of the dedicated Wedding Team creates a stress-free experience for couples from the planning stage to their Big Day. The hotel is renowned for the quality of its food, the premium guestrooms, which are among the largest in any Irish four star hotel, add to the luxury experience and the care, friendliness and professionalism of staff ensure that every Harvey’s Point Wedding Day results in lasting happy memories.
‘Brides and Grooms, who have had their weddings here over more than 22 years, have come back to us on their anniversaries and later to celebrate family events such as Christenings and First Holy Communions, and their children now choose Harvey’s Point for their own wedding’, says Deirdre.
Little wonder therefore that Deirdre was accorded a rapturous ovation from more than 300 hoteliers and wedding industry professionals when she accepted the ‘Overall Wedding Venue of the Year’ trophy at the WeddingsOnline.ie Awards banquet .
The Irish Hotels Federation has called attempts by the Government to resurrect the Joint Labour Committee (JLC) system 'an exercise in economic folly that is out of touch with the realities confronting tourism businesses across the country.
Paul Gallagher, President, IHF said : “At a time when many tourism businesses are struggling to survive, it is unacceptable that the Government’s focus is on restoring an outdated wage setting mechanism that severely undermines the viability of Ireland’s tourism industry. We are calling on the Government to show political gumption and face down short-sighted demands by those seeking to retain the status quo.”
“Job creation should not be all about the smart economy. We have a Government that is attempting to pull out all the stops to create jobs in the IT and innovation sector but their words and actions are not aligned when it comes to tourism – one of the country’s largest indigenous industries,” states Mr Gallagher. “On the one hand we have supportive tourism initiatives such as a reduced VAT rate while on the other hand we have additional costs being imposed on tourism businesses in the form of JLCs. What we’d like is for Fine Gael, in particular, to show the courage of its convictions and follow a pro-business agenda that allows tourism to live up to its potential to act as a major engine for growth and job creation.”
Mr Gallagher said that payroll is the largest element of hotel and guesthouses’ costs, representing 42% relative to turnover following significant increases over the last decade. He urged the Government to create an environment that safeguards the 56,000 employees in hotels and guesthouses allows for growth in employment. He states that, if enacted, the proposed legislation would undermine industry and State efforts to promote the tourism sector as a driver for economic growth – a policy objective to which the Government states it is committed and which has the potential to create over 20,000 new tourism jobs by 2015.
“Hotels and guesthouses, many of which are operating at a loss, are being forced to pay a premium over and above the national minimum wage,” states Mr Gallagher states. “Businesses can no longer be shackled with an obsolete system which imposes excessive wage demands and complex compliance requirements. The proposed legislation makes no sense for our country and is neither appropriate nor fit for purpose in a modern competitive economy. It has lost its relevance with the introduction of the National Minimum Wage Act and other extensive employment legislation.”
“It is astonishing that, while 440,000 people are on the live register, the Government is seeking to create another barrier to creating employment. By re-instating the JLC system the Government will in fact be facilitating an increase in the number of people on the live register.”
The Irish Hotels Federation represents almost 900 hotels and guesthouses throughout the country, which in turn employ 56,000 people. The Federation’s fundamental problem with the JLC system is that the main wage legislatively determined wage rates reflect the economic peak of 2007 rather than the dramatically worsened position of 2012 in which hotels across the board are experiencing dramatically reduced revenue and capacity utilisation.
