Helena Healy in conversation with
SANDRA O'CONNELL
I LIVE IN Leitrim, and the offices of B&B Ireland, where I’m chief executive, are in Ballyshannon, in Donegal, so I have a half-hour commute through gorgeous countryside to get here.
B&B Ireland was formed last year by the merger of Town & Country Homes, of which I was chief executive, and Irish Farmhouse Holidays. We have 1,100 members, or half the registered B&Bs in the country.
My day is very varied. For the first three months of the year I’m mostly out of the country, promoting B&Bs at trade and consumer fairs. People think all the travel is glamorous. It’s not. All I see are the insides of airports, taxis, conference centres and hotel rooms. And, believe me, no matter how nice they are, all hotel rooms are basically the same. That puts me in a good position to appreciate just what it is the B&B experience offers.
We invented the concept. In the 1960s the government came to the women of Ireland and said: “We don’t have enough hotel rooms. Could you open your doors and take in visitors?” And that’s what we’ve been doing ever since.
Bookings are made centrally online, so we have a big IT team looking after the system. We also help members with their customer service. Last week, for example, it was all about the volcano again, with guests stranded and new bookings arriving. We had to help make sure everyone got sorted.
Lunch is at the desk, though I’ll try and get out even once a week for a change.
Part of my role includes lobbying the Government. I was in Dáil Éireann last week to highlight the difficulties commercial rates would cause us. On the other hand, something we lobbied for, and got, is the classification of B&Bs similar to hotels. Customers want it and B&B owners want it, and it is now being rolled out, so look out for those stars: it’ll really help people know what they’re getting and help push standards up even higher.