Clew Bay Hotel wins National Employer Award

THE Clew Bay Hotel, Westport, has captured the National Employer Award at the Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) Quality Employers Awards 2019.

The event acknowledged excellence in human resource management across Ireland’s hotel and guesthouse sector.

The awards were presented by Brendan Griffin, Minister of State for Tourism and Sport, in Killarney. 

Congratulating the winners, Michael Lennon, IHF President said: “The Irish tourism sector is acclaimed across the globe for its outstanding welcome and customer service levels.

"Our employees are our best ambassadors, ensuring that guests have a truly memorable visit that they will share with their family and friends. Our employees help to give our guests invaluable hospitality experiences that cannot be quantified.”

The chairman of the judging panel, Dr. Tony Lenehan, paid tribute to the category winning hotels on the excellent employee development work being done in the hotel sector.

“The hotel sector is applying best practice employment standards that were previously only linked to the technology and manufacturing sectors in Ireland.

"The judging committee was of the opinion that these winners demonstrated ongoing training and development opportunities for their employees through innovative quality employer initiatives.

"The hotel sector has made huge progress in recent years and the priority given to employee retention benefits, welfare and training development was very evident across all submissions.”

The tourism industry is Ireland’s largest indigenous employer and has created over 94,000 new jobs since 2011. It now supports over 260,000 jobs - equivalent to 11% of total employment in Ireland with over 60,000 of these jobs in the hotels sector alone.