Hotel group call centre to create 190 jobs in Cork

A Cork call centre owned by one of the world's largest hotel and leisure groups is set to create 190 jobs, the Tánaiste, Ms Harney, announced yesterday on a visit to the city.

Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide will increase its workforce in the centre to 450 by the end of 2004. The US company owns, leases, manages or franchises more than 740 hotels in 80 countries with brand names including Sheraton, Westin, St Regis and Four Points. Starwood recently opened its first hotel in the Republic - The Westin at College Green in Dublin.

It acquired its customer contact centre in Cork in 1998 from the ITT Sheraton hotel group.

Ms Harney said the expansion of the Starwood operation in Cork brought to five the number of new investments announced in the past week.

"The projects have one thing in common in that they will provide high-quality employment in line with Government policy and IDA Ireland strategy of bringing added-value investment into Ireland. In a difficult global environment, Ireland is continuing to prove attractive to foreign investment."

The expansion of the call centre will increase its capacity, enabling it to handle 5.6 million inquiries per annum by 2004. The Cork centre handles calls from 43 countries in 14 different languages and recently added Latin America to its customer base. Three-quarters of its staff are multilingual.

Through its e-communications group, it processes almost half of Starwood's e-mail and website queries. It is also responsible for support activities such as the provision of special services for five-star hotel guests, such as travel arrangements and dinner/theatre reservations.

Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide is headquartered in New York. It employs 115,000 people worldwide. It had sales of almost $4 billion (€4.07 billion) and net profits of more than $150 billion for 2001.

Meanwhile, Ms Harney officially opened a €3 million expansion to GN ReSound Ireland Ltd's hearing-device production facility on Model Farm Road, Cork, yesterday.

The Cork facility is one of GN ReSound's primary sites for the production of its range of digital hearing instruments, sold under the "Canta" and "Oria" model names.

The expansion has led to the hiring of 35 new employees at the facility, which now employs more than 200 people.