Wednesday 3rd December 2008: Today, at the Fáilte Ireland Optimus Awards, the Maryborough Hotel & Spa, Cork became the first hotel in Ireland to collect the highest European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Award for Excellence. To do so, Maryborough Hotel had previously progressed through the earlier modules of the Optimus Programme promoted by Fáilte Ireland

In all forty six tourism establishments were honoured at the award ceremony held today in the Brehon Hotel in Killarney. The Optimus programme, developed by Fáilte Ireland, aims to help tourism establishments – including hotels, visitor services and restaurants - achieve excellence in every aspect of their business by providing a practical approach to improving business and customer service.

Left to right are: Aidan Pender, Fáilte Ireland; Joanne McEniff and Michelle McKenna, Westport Woods Hotel & Spa; and Redmond O’Donoghue, Chairman Fáilte Ireland

Speaking at the awards, Aidan Pender, Director of Policy and Industry Development congratulated the latest recipients and said “Optimus is all about supporting enterprises to develop a culture of continuous improvement. Businesses are encouraged to establish smarter systems, innovate on products and services and strive for higher standards across the board with the ultimate goal of considerably improved business performance. Fáilte Ireland provides hotels with an approach to managing their business, which matches worldwide standards in hospitality through the provision of customised training, consultancy, marketing services to support the development and implementation of the quality system.”

Speaking today, Chairman of Fáilte Ireland, Redmond O’Donoghue congratulated the award winners – “This awards ceremony sees the highest number of tourism businesses ever in Ireland receive recognition for their commitment to quality through the Optimus Programme. Today’s recipients are spread across fourteen counties and include a range of businesses across the tourism industry.

He continued “This programme particularly appeals to me because of its emphasis on improving the visitors’ experience during their stay in Ireland. Tourism numbers are always assisted by strong marketing programmes but some of the best marketing is done through word of mouth. In the age of the internet, with influential sites such as Tripadvisor and others, this word of mouth endorsement has become even stronger factor and made the customer’s personal experience all the more important to the tourism industry.”

The recipients at this year’s awards were:

Wednesday 9th July 2008: Thirteen tourism establishments have been honoured at the Fáilte Ireland Optimus Awards held today in the Castletroy Park Hotel, Limerick. The Optimus programme, developed by Fáilte Ireland, aims to help tourism establishments achieve excellence in every aspect of their business by providing a practical approach to boosting bottom-line performance and a focus on improving results.

John Concannon, Director of Regional Development at Fáilte Ireland, congratulated the latest recipients of Accreditation and said “Optimus is a vital tool for enterprises which aspire to reach the best international standards for service quality and business effectiveness. It enables the enterprises, and those who work in them, to develop a culture of excellence in customer service and best practice in every area of its operations.”

He continued “The Optimus multi-tiered programme was designed to change the service culture and engage management and staff in a continuous pursuit of improvements which would deliver a competitive edge and sustainability. These objectives are even more vital now because of the changing economic and trading environment at home and internationally, and the results to date clearly demonstrate that Optimus works on a number of fronts in raising quality standards and improving operational effectiveness and ultimately profitability.”

Mr. Concannon added that the 150 enterprises which had undertaken the Optimus programme to date were succeeding in raising the quality of their products and their business performance to equal the best found anywhere, and he urged more tourism enterprises to follow their example and take the Optimus road to excellence and better business.

BF Restaurants, Lemongrass, Maynooth.

The recipients at this year’s awards were:

Maryborough Hotel and Spa, Cork