Mr. Peter Brennan

In his time with Choice Hotels Ireland, Peter Brennan has gone from overseeing two hotels to looking after 13 nationwide, with two more to open shortly.

In his time with Choice Hotels Ireland, Peter Brennan has gone from overseeing two hotels to looking after 13 nationwide, with two more to open shortly.

Brennan is operations director for the Choice Hotels group, which includes eight Quality Hotels, five Comfort Inns and seven Clarion Hotels under Brennan's charge.It has management contracts with the Morrison hotel in Dublin and Carton House hotel in Maynooth.

When Brennan joined the group in 1998, he had ‘‘a very small team", he said.
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Brennan is originally from Dublin, where he attended Blackrock College and DIT Cathal Brugha Street.

He worked at Dromoland Castle in Co Clare, and at the Grand hotel in Malahide before leaving for Britain in 1984.

He went on to become group general manager with the British chain THF, now known as Forte Hotels.In 1996, he returned to Ireland as general manager of the Fitzpatrick Hotel in Killiney.

He sees a stark difference between today's hotel business and the one he remembers from 1980. ‘‘Then they were a luxury to everybody - but now there's a level there for everyone in terms of cost," he said.

He estimates that business is divided between 40 per cent business travellers and 60 per cent leisure travellers.

‘‘It used to be that you'd never see people more than once but now we have the same families in on a regular basis," he said.

Dublin born Peter Brennan, speaks to Pamela Duncan about the group's latest venture.
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Mr Brennan is the Group Operations Director for both the Quality and Comfort Inn hotel chains with responsibility for 14 hotels in Ireland.But he has travelled a long way to don this mantel.

Mr Brennan started his career here in the region as a wine waiter at Dromoland Castle back in 1979, while on his placement from the Dublin College of Catering.

Now he is back in the area having overseen the opening of the Quality chain's first Limerick-based hotel, their eighth in Ireland.He has noted a big change in both Limerick itself and the hotel industry in the area.

"Overall, yes, there's a huge upsurgence in Limerick of commercial business.Obviously the city has become more attractive both to investors coming in, but also to people going away for weekends, which makes up the commercial and leisure business to the area".

Armed with this knowledge and the experience of the two Clarion hotels, which also come under the Choice brand, the group have moved to open the Quality hotel on the border of Roxboro and Southill.

And while some eyebrows have been raised locally as to the hotel's location, Mr Brennan sees the area as the perfect up-and-coming district from which to launch the Limerick.

"We have great confidence and faith in this area that it will grow," Mr Brennan says.
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Because the hotel group are able to provide their customers with three different varieties of hotel with different levels of service and price ranges, Mr Brennan feels the chain has tapped into the market at the right time.
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Brennan admits that the success of the group also has a lot to do with a the shift towards a more affluent generation.