Mothballing of struggling hotels ‘a last resort’

The mothballing of under-performing hotels has to be a last resort and instead efforts should be focused on increasing the numbers of tourists into Ireland.

That is the view of the Galway-born executive chairman of the Jumeirah Group, Gerald Lawless, who yesterday was bestowed with an honorary doctorate from the Shannon Hotel College of Management.

A graduate of the college in 1975, Mr Lawless today heads up a group that employs 13,000 staff across 17 luxury hotels worldwide.