Michael Magner speaks to Hotel and Restaurant Times and reflects on his first year as President of the Irish Hotels Federation.
Having completed his first year as President of the Irish Hotels Federation, Michael Magner is feeling confident about the attitude of the new Government towards tourism.
While there is still not a full ministry dedicated to the country’s largest indigenous industry, it now sits beside Enterprise and Employment and with Peter Burke, seems to have a minister with a firm grasp of the sector, after a series of decidedly unfocused tourism ministers.
But there are challenges too and 2024 saw a lot of additional costs heaped upon an industry struggling to find its feet in an increasingly competitive international tourism scene.
Profit is key
For Michael, one of the key words to keep in mind in an industry about which he is passionate and deadly serious is the word ‘profit’.
“It has been a fast 12 months, during which time we’ve all been running at pace, trying to keep up with the challenges our business faced,” says Michael. “While there’s discussion around how inflation may have moderated, the reality is that it certainly hasn’t started to bear fruit for our hotel industry.”
Ireland, he says, is a very expensive place to do business and the hotel industry in particular needs to find new ways of doing business.
“Over the last two years or so, profit has been seen almost as a dirty word in our industry, or at least as a word that a lot of people weren’t too comfortable using. As national president of our organisation, I have no issue whatsoever in saying that profit is key to any business in terms of what they need to do for their future.
“If you don’t have profit, you don’t have the scope to reinvest back into your business: keeping guest rooms up to the current trends, keeping the public areas up to code, for example. Also, legislation (national and European) requires us to make changes in how we deliver our experience for our consumers. If we don’t invest because we don’t have profit, then our product starts to become dated, tired or worn out.”
Hope for the industry
The current administration gives hope for the industry, Michael feels, with indications that it is a government that has a decent understanding of the job at hand. Moving the Tourism ministry to a ministry that includes Enterprise and Employment was very positive, he says.
“I’d have to say that, for the first time in my career in the hospitality industry, the current Programme for Government sees tourism being recognised for the contribution that it makes to the economy. That, for me, has been a very welcome leap forward.”
The tourism industry needs a framework, he says, similar to that which underpins the agricultural industry and he is hopeful that Minister Burke’s new regime is one that can deliver this.
“We need to have that framework correctly built,” says Michael, “to ensure that those small and medium-sized independent family businesses (which are primarily located outside our large urban areas) are protected.”
Aligned towards the future
It is also important for the hospitality sector to align itself towards the future. There are, he says, opportunities presented by the evolution of AI in the industry; one such approach is that of a hotelier in France who spoke recently at the Irish Hotels Federation Conference in Killarney.
“This piece of technology at the Disneyland Resort uses an overhead camera to look at the food on a customer’s plate in the buffet. Using AI-based technology, it scans the plate and works out the precise quantity, volume and weight of the food and will charge the customer precisely.
“The question was put to me, ‘So won’t this kind of technology put people out of jobs?’ Absolutely not! It’s a mechanism that will free up our people at the tills so that they can engage with people and chat to them and say, ‘Welcome to our buffet here in Disneyland Resort. Are you having a wonderful time?’”
Regulation for an even playing field
For the sake of a sane and well-manage future in the hospitality industry, Michael is of the firm opinion that the Air BnB sector needs to be regulated:
“If you regulated it, then you’re on a more even playing field,” says Michael. “That’s my stance on that. We welcome the fact that there’s competition – that’s not something we’re opposed to – but equally, if you’re providing a service for which you’re charging money, then you should be paying into the promotion of Ireland’s tourism.
“That’s what hotels and registered accommodation providers are doing. The money that Fáilte Ireland and Tourism Ireland gets is used to promote Ireland around the world. When a consumer then chooses decides to visit Ireland, he can stay in a regulated and registered Air BnB product or stay in a hotel.”
Having grown up on a farm, Michael has found his way into the hospitality industry in almost accidental fashion. It certainly wasn’t looked upon as the most viable option by him or by his parents when he was growing up. The nature of the business has been transformed in recent years, however, and the negative aspects that used to be associated with the sector are now firmly in the past.
“It used to be case that there were split shifts, long hours and unsociable hours…. Terms and conditions weren’t good, but I’ve been in the industry over 30 years and, my God, we’ve come on in leaps and bounds in that time: we have really progressive human resources practices, the split shifts are gone, the long hours are gone too – my managers in my hotel only do 40 hours a week. And rightly so.”
Enthused by his young employees
Michael is enthused by his young employees; by their dedication and work ethic which is often at odds with what he sees as the prejudiced image of the millennial generation being constantly staring at their phones and having little enterprise.
“We have a banqueting team in my own hotel of about 20 young people. They’re all either midway through their second-level education or in their early years of university. They are absolutely amazing. They listen, and that’s something I can’t over-emphasize enough because people of their generation often get a bad rap from older people.
“I was thinking about it recently and what I’d love to do is to invite their parents into the hotel for dinner some evening in the ballroom and let their young people look after them and serve them; let them see how well these young people are doing and how proud they should be of them.
“We need to do things like that – my colleagues and I; to invite career guidance counsellors in the schools to come in for an open day and experience what a hotel is.”
It all comes back, Michael says, to the notion of profit and reinvesting in the service and experience that you provide. And, the one area where it is absolutely vital to keep investing in is that of people.
People have to be front and centre
I’m very fortunate as the national president of the IHF to have a board and a national council that are experts in what they do. They recognise and they see the importance of the whole holistic approach to the industry… it’s not just about the KPI, it’s about a wider piece and people have to be front and centre. A hotel is just bricks and mortar and it’s the people in it that bring it to life.”
From such an initiative by one of his predecessors in the IHF, the QEP (Quality Employer Programme) has grown to become a pillar annual event where employees are recognised and rewarded for their application and work, with many of them coming from other disciplines to find their calling in the hospitality sector.
“There was a lot of talk about the brain-drain after Covid. We did lose a lot of people from the hospitality sector then, but what hasn’t been highlighted is that many of those who did move to other industries ended up saying, ‘I don’t really like it here!’ The bounce back (of people into the industry) has been incredible.
“By doing things like Employee of the Year, it showcases the respect that we have for people and the importance that we see our people paying to our industry.”
