Hotel Owner Hotel Owner May 2017 digital | Page 23

COMPANY Q&A
COMPANY Q&A | JURYS INN
After the acquisition
After being acquired by Lone Star Funds last year in a €900m deal, and hitting
a record 5 million guests in the same year, TOM DAVIS sits down with Jurys Inn
managing director, Jason Carruthers, to learn about where the company is heading
terms of food and beverage management, a week in our properties. I would say I’m
HR management and sales management. hands on and I have a lot of contact with
I worked my way up and became a general the general managers.
manager just before I was 30. I managed
JASON CARRUTHERS
Jurys Inn managing director
hotels for a few hotel brands and after What segment of the market is Jurys
a period of time I became an operations Inn aimed at?
director for Shire Hotels. That was my first We operate both in the business and the
move into corporate life, which was in 2005. leisure segments. It’s increasingly difficult to
Having had that role for five years I then tell because of the channels of distribution,
joined Accor and I was vice-president for in terms of online travel agents and so
Novotel in the UK and Mercure, for all of the on, the purpose of our guests’ visits. On
brand’s regional properties. I joined Jurys Inn the business side this would be individual,
after being the CEO of Andrew Brownsword transient visitors who are coming to a city
collection of country house and boutique as a one-off, and then we also have regular
properties. I joined Jurys Inn in January 2016. corporate business travellers who may well
have a negotiated rate with us and their
When was Jurys Inn founded? Do you take a hands-on approach? parent company is based in the city where
Jurys can be traced back to the 1881 when I’m hands on, but I’ve got a team. I have an our hotel is located. Then there are also
William Jury opened the first boarding operational team with functional heads in business groups - people who are attending
house in Dublin. Then, a significant period areas such as HR, sales, revenue, marketing conferences in our own hotels, or maybe
of time after that, the first Doyle hotel and finance, but I spend at least two days attending city congress or events during
was also built in Dublin in 1964. The group
Jurys Doyle was actually formed 1999
when the Doyle Group was acquired
by Jurys. The Jurys Inn brand, as it is
today, was introduced in 1993 and that
commenced with the opening of the Galway
and Christchurch hotels. The brand was
acquired by Lone Star Funds in 2015 in a
€900m (£763m) deal and it is now made up
of 36 hotels in 31 locations - we have just
short of 7,400 rooms.
Tell us about your background
I developed an interest in all things to do
with food, drink and hotels from a very
early age, from being on holiday with my
parents. I then went on to complete an HND
at Blackpool College, and in my early years I
joined Shire Hotels as a graduate and learnt
all the various aspects of the business in
May 2017
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