The hotel industry has announced a recruitment drive to fill 40,000 jobs by the end of the decade.
The sector, which said 33,000 jobs have been created in tourism since 2011, is seeking managers, accountants, food-and-beverage managers, chefs, health professionals and other skilled workers.
Hoteliers determined to erase the image of difficult working conditions and minimum wages are offering on- the-job training, travel at home and abroad and salaries in some cases exceeding €100,000 a year for top jobs such as chefs and general managers.
The recruitment drive comes as tourism interests predict 2016 will deliver another bumper year, with visitor numbers rising to a record 8.2 million and revenue swelling to €4.4 billion.
It is expected the Government target of 250,000 jobs – up from 205,000 currently – in the industry by 2025 will comfortably be met.
The search for new staff also takes place as hotel sales topped €1 billion last year and the tourist industry itself raised concerns that Ireland may not have enough hotels to cope with the boom in coming years.
Stephen McNally of Dalata Hotels and president of the Irish Hotels Federation said it was “a very exciting time for Irish tourism”.
“I don’t know anybody who isn’t investing in staff either to keep and develop the careers of those they have or to attract new entrants,” he said.
Mr McNally attended Rockwell Hotel and Catering School and gained experience with Ramada Hotels in the UK and Germany, completing the Ramada management development programme, before joining Jurys Doyle Hotel Group in 1989. He is now deputy chief executive of Dalata, which is responsible for the Maldron and Clayton hotel chains, among others.
Huge challenges
“There are huge challenges in putting together management teams,” said Elaina Fitzgerald Kane, whose family runs Fitzgerald’s Woodlands House Hotel in Adare, Co Limerick, and the Vienna Woods Hotel in Cork.
“The days of low wages are gone. A head chef can make your restaurant and can earn €100,000 or more. Deputy managers can earn €80,000 to €100,000 and there is much more opportunity for career development,” said Ms Fitzgerald Kane.
Education
As part of the recruitment campaign the hotels federation published
Get a Life in Tourism
, a magazine containing careers information and interviews.
Bryan Davern, general manager of the Dean in Dublin’s Harcourt Street, was one of those interviewed. He said he started his career when he was still in school, with a weekend job as a porter at the Cashel Palace Hotel.
He attended the Shannon College of Hotel Management. “It is a great course,” he said. “A number of people in my year have since diversified and gone into banking or marketing, but they still use what they learned in Shannon.”
Hotel work “provides opportunities to work in the heart of a city or in very rural locations and in just about every country in the world. A day won’t pass when you’re not working with people,” he said.
Patrick Phillips is chef de partie at Glenlo Abbey Hotel in Galway. He studied architecture at UL before discovering he could make a living from his love of food.
He took a catering and culinary skills course at the National Learning Network in Limerick, obtained a higher certificate in culinary arts from GMIT and is currently studying for a BA in culinary arts.
“I value the education side very highly,” he said.
Sinead Delaney followed her father into the industry and landed her dream job, restaurant manager at Ashford Castle. She holds a BSc in international hospitality management at DIT. In a word she said her career was “rewarding”.
