Griffin Hotel Group NOMINATION: Large Company of the Year Award
ONE of Ireland’s leading independent hotel groups, ‘ The Griffin Group’ celebrates 57 years in business this year. While the group can trace its roots back to a small country guest house setup four generations ago it officially began in 1960 when Michael and Jenny Griffin purchased the Pier Hotel in Rosslare Harbour, County Wexford.
In 1976 Liam Griffin purchased the Pier Hotel from his parents and in 1980 The Pier Hotel was renamed Hotel Rosslare. The company expanded in 1985 with the purchase of Hotel Kilkenny and in 1991 the Ferrycarrig Hotel was also bought and Hotel Rosslare was sold in 1999. The group opened Ireland’s only Destination Spa ‘Monart’ in 2005 and a year later Hotel Kilkenny was redeveloped.
The group today operates the five-star Monart Destination Spa and the four-star properties; the Ferrycarrig Hotel in Wexford and Hotel Kilkenny in Kilkenny are now in the hands of the fourth generation of the Griffin family.
Michael Griffin has held the role of CEO since 2012 and manages the business daily along with his brother and fellow director Liam Anthony Griffin, having succeeded their father, Liam Griffin who is currently the Chairman of the board of Griffin Hotel Group.
Many changes have taken place over the last 57 years for the Griffin Hotel Group including the worst economic crisis to hit business in Ireland’s history. The hotel business in Ireland was hit particularly hard. Hotel businesses needed to react quickly to survive and in many cases this negatively impacted either the customer experience or unfortunately lead to many hotels falling into receivership.
The Griffin Group is a great example of a business, which successfully bucked the trend through embracing a top down approach to implementing change and smarter ways of working. During the downturn all existing aspects of the business were reviewed including pricing, resourcing and investment. Following the restructuring of the company in 2012; it began to recover strongly and this strength allowed the hotel company to successfully refinance their legacy debt in a €26 million deal that concluded last October.
CEO Michael Griffin says, “We could easily write a book on the execution of our change programme since 2012; but at the heart of it all lies the teams commitment to maintaining and further building upon the premium customer experience at each of our hotel properties. This focus on the core values of customer service and guest satisfaction has helped to ensure award winning status for each of the properties and I’m confident that it will continue to see the business achieve its future growth ambitions over the years to come.”
The group has an average of 433 employees which increases to over 450 during peak periods and the group contributes approximately €14 million per year back into the local economy through staff wages and direct suppliers within Wexford and Kilkenny.
The family run hotel group has established itself as one of Ireland’s leading independent hotel groups and has down through the years won multiple awards including worldwide recognition for Monart Destination Spa as a world leading destination Spa.
www.griffingroup.ie