'Real luxury is human connection': The magic behind The Great Southern Killarney

Yeah, I suppose it all starts with strategy, I suppose, and understanding what we wanted the hotel to be when it was complete.

We had a significant CapEx plan, so we've done everything from bedrooms, retrofitting, air conditioning, the restaurants, our bar, our new brasserie concept and Brown's Bar.

We've also done the event centre.

Outside of CapEx then was everything we could do from an upgrade point of view in the outlets, so menus, uniforms.

But I suppose the biggest investment then was in the people.

Getting the right level of training, getting the right team in place, and then making sure that when we did that, that the team were ready.

Because the main thing, when a hotel has been operating for 172 years, it always operated at a really high level in its market.

we wanted to move that up another notch.

And it was a big mindset shift, you know, and that doesn't come easy, you know.

So it was really about making the team understand what would be different and how we were going to get there, you know.

And they've done an incredible job.

I think it's a... every single person contributed, which is the, the main thing.

And like our, our purpose, I suppose, for the team is to, to be the reason every state becomes a story.

And that's how we, we kind of link it back to the guest.

And I think everybody, Everybody, every team has done that.

Yeah.

Fantastic.

And what was, I suppose, the key for you to, you know, connecting with the team, communicating the vision to them, getting everyone on board? How did you approach that in terms of, yeah, kind of allowing them to be part of the journey and making sure there was a cohesive

vision? I suppose you need to be, like...

visible and constantly visible explain the why like why are we doing it and what differences will it make well what differences will it make for them and then um what differences that make for them and then like be consistent in your communication so like you you can't walk past something that's not acceptable you know but you also need the team to understand why they need to do it.

So I suppose it's a two-pronged approach and it always comes back to communication.

You have to set the expectations.

People need to understand why they're involved in it, but then you can have a little bit of fun with it.

It's a lovely environment to be in and when you're going above and beyond for the guests, we mentioned it before, it's a wonderful feeling.

So I think a big part of it then was for belief was to actually see the commitment from the owners and the commitment from the management team so like everybody was kind of unsure at the start we were really consistent in our approach then the new uniforms came in then the bedrooms were done but people in the front of house couldn't really see the bedrooms but then the restaurants got this amazing refurb.