IMI decision a blow to Killarney

THE Irish Management Institute has pulled out of Killarney for this year’s annual conference.

The loss will be a blow to the town which previously got a cash injection of up to €500,000 from the three-day event with up to 800 people attending the event.

Great Southern, Killarney, general manager Conor Hennigan, said he hoped the IMI would be back in Killarney in 2006 for its 50th anniversary. An IMI spokesman said it had an open mind on the issue but said the move to the Marriott Hotel in Druids Glen, Co Wicklow, was in response to members’ needs.

They did not want to travel to Killarney and they wanted the event over two days and not three.

In recent years, numbers had fallen sharply from the highs of the peak years of the conference of 700/800 to closer to 300.

Mr Hennigan said he understood why the IMI would want to try a new venue. As president of the Killarney Chambers of Commerce he said he took the positive from the long association Killarney and the Great Southern Hotel has had with the IMI.

In 50 years the IMI conference was held outside Killarney only four times. Dublin, Limerick, Belfast and Galway were the locations and the IMI spokesman hinted strongly the 50th anniversary conference may not make it back to its old stomping ground in Killarney as Mr Hennigan hopes it will in 2006.

Expressing disappointment at the venue change Mr Hennigan said he understood the organisation needed to refresh itself.

“We enjoyed a very good relationship with the IMI and it heightened the profile of Killarney and the Great Southern Hotel,” he said.

The decision by the IMI follows extensive consultation with its members and is part of chief executive Dr Tom McCarthy’s move to make the Institute relevant in the 21st century.

Since taking over at the IMI Dr McCarthy has undertaken a strategic review. It ha become clear the IMI has to refocus to ensure it is as relevant to the new enterprise-driven information economy as it was to the needs of industrial Ireland for the past 50 years.

The IMI aims to achieve recognition as one of the top 50 management institutes in the world and to ensure its suite of executive masters programmes will be ranked in the top 25 in the world within 10 years.