Welcome from Our Chief Executive, Michael Kearney
As Chief Executive of Carlton Hotel Group, I'd like to welcome you to the Carlton Hotel Group blog. The Carlton Hotel Group was established in 2004 and since then has developed as one of the premier Hotel Groups in Ireland. In the past 7 years Carlton has grown substantially from operating one hotel to having a presence in many locations throughout Ireland.
Through this blog it is my aim to give you an insight into what's going on in all of our hotels plus my opinions on current affairs, sports news, general activities and events. I will also occassionally invite some of my colleagues to write on the blog giving you more opinions and insights into what's going on at Carlton. If you have any questions or queries on any of the posts please leave a comment and I will respond at my earliest convenience. Enjoy reading.............
Posted: 2010-11-30 12:30:00
After last week’s show saw two Apprentices being fired Bill was now left with only five candidates this week. As Michelle was on team Fusion on her own Bill moved Barry to join her which left a split of three against two. This week’s task involved creating a website and rewards scheme for Carry-Out off license, along with a social media campaign to support it. They emphasised that they were keen to target the female market as their main consumer base was male and they wanted to expand on that.The teams had two days to complete the task, ending on a presentation in a designated Carry-Out store on day two. Elev8 found it hard to decide on a project manager as all three candidates were eager to take it but they eventually decided on Niamh. Fusion opted not to choose a pr ...
Posted: 2010-11-25 16:00:00
This week we had two representatives from the Carlton Hotel Group at the BBC Good Food Show at the NEC in Birmingham. Thys Vogels, general manager of the Carlton Hotel Tralee, was their representing Failte Ireland and George Hook, sales manager of the Carlton Hotel Kinsale, was representing Kinsale Tourism. It was a very busy event with 15,000 visitors passing through on the opening day alone with a further 95,000 expected. They both took part in a Masterchef challenge with George really getting into it by donning a chefs hat for the task!As the rest of us are enjoying our festive weather, our Director of Sales and Marketing has been faced with the unfortunate task of donning the suncream each day as she is doing work for Tourism Ireland in Australia and New Zealand. As her journ ...
Posted: 2010-11-23 13:00:00
The task for the Apprentice’s this week was set by Phillips and Harvey Norman and involved the candidates creating a cinema advert for a new Phillips coffee machine. Bill mixed the teams by moving Panos over to Elev8, and then selected him as project manager for the team and Ciara as project manager for Fusion. The candidates had a full day to come up with their concept before filming began on day two. Both teams seemed to have difficulty coming up with original ideas as the focus groups weren’t impressed with either. Elev8 took the clever route and completely changed their concept but Fusion seemed to take the safe route and only tweaked theirs slightly. I didn’t understand why they went ahead with an idea that the focus group thought was boring and unimaginati ...
Posted: 2010-11-18 12:30:00
Yesterday was a busy day for the Carlton Castletroy Park Hotel and although I wasn’t available to make it down I heard all about what went on! Last night the hotel hosted Alan Quinlan’s book launch, an event that seemed to be attended by the whole of Limerick! Not surprising though considering Alan is, in many people’s opinion, one of the greatest rugby players of all time. The chance to meet a brilliant Munster player was not something the people of Limerick were going to pass up. Not only did plenty of the locals turn up but Alan also brought along some of his famous rugby playing friends. The evening was a great success and Alan took the time to sign a copy of his book for everyone that wanted one. It was great to see such a major event taking place in one of ...
Posted: 2010-11-16 11:30:00
This week’s task for the Apprentice candidates was set by Spar and involved creating a marketing campaign for a new and innovative Irish product and then presenting it to Spar. For the task Bill mixed up the teams again moving Panos and Jamie to Fusion and Barry, Dave and Niamh to Elev8. For project manager Elev8 chose Barry despite Niamh wanting to do it and Fusion chose Michelle as noone else seemed to want it!After a brief meeting both teams were split in two as one half went to Spar shops to do some market research and the other half met with suppliers to discuss their product options. Each team had sixty minutes to let ten different companies pitch their product and only Fusion seemes to manage their time correctly. In the end Elev8 decided on a range of ready meals th ...
Posted: 2010-11-12 16:30:00
Another busy week for the Carlton Group began with a trip down to the Carlton Hotel Kinsale on Monday. I met with the hotel’s general manager John McGrath and I was delighted to hear they are forecasting for a good season and their order book is looking strong! They are actually currently sponsoring Kinsale Yacht Club White Sails Autumn race series, held for over 10 weeks.After heading back up to Dublin Airport on Tuesday I was sorry to hear that The Hazel Hotel in Monasterevin, Co. Kildare went into liquidation this week. This unfortunately meant bad news for a lot of Kildare brides that had their weddings booked in the hotel. The Carlton Abbey Hotel received a number of calls from anxious brides who are now without a venue for their big day but I’m delighted to say ...
Posted: 2010-11-11 16:00:00
The Carlton Cup five a side football tournament took place on Sunday for the third year in a row in Bunclody, Co. Wexford. For the past two years the Carlton Millrace have won the cup so rivalry was high on the day between all the teams as they were all eager to see the Millrace beaten.All the teams played well but it was ultimately down to the Carlton Redcastle ‘Legends’ and the head office team to battle it out for the trophy. Maybe it was down to the cheerleading team of Leanne, Tara, Caoimhe & Ausra that lead to the Redcastle’s victory but I must admit I was disappointed that we didn’t win!The trophy was well deserved by the ‘Legends’ though as Dermott, Mark, Niall, Dean and Brendan in goal fought a hard battle at every stage, eventuall ...
