One More Thing: The new Viceroy of the Irish

Bill Walshe, the former chief executive of Doyle Collection hotels who now runs the glitzy Viceroy Hotel Group, is doing his bit for the folks back home.

Viceroy, which has 13 hotels in the US, Middle East and Europe, this week kicked off a big push into the Irish market by its new 240-bed, 29-storey hotel in New York, which opened in October under the watchful eye of another Irishman, former Morrison boss Gerard Denneny.

The design hotel, which commissioned a bespoke fragrance to waft around its double-height lobby, has launched special rates for Irish people, available on its website.

The rapidly-expanding, glitzy hotel group is the Manchester City of the international hotel market. Viceroy is backed by Mubadala Development Company, the Abu Dhabi government-owned company whose chief executive, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, is chairman of the world's richest football club.

I guess that makes Walshe the hospitality industry's Manuel Pellegrini (the Man City boss). Better than being the industry's David Moyes, I suppose.