Hotel and golf course tee off together

David Webster, manager of the Powerscourt hotel (formerly the Ritz Carlton) in Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, has caught the positivity bug which is now endemic across the hospitality sector.

Webster, who joined the hotel last year after it was bought by Brehon Capital Partners, says both the leisure and conferencing markets, with the latter driven by business from Britain and the US, have improved greatly this year.

There has also been a “real pick-up” recently in the weddings market.

The hotel is gearing up for some nuptials of its own. When it traded as the Ritz, it operated slightly aloof from the fine golf complex across the avenue of the sprawling Powerscourt estate.

Webster and golf course chief Bernard Gibbons want the two to work closer together and plan to marry their IT infrastructures in coming weeks.

Punters will now be able put their golf on their hotel bill, and so on.

“The hotel and golf complex will remain separately owned and managed, but it will start to feel like one resort to customers,” says Webster, who previously ran Carton House in Maynooth.

In one of the first joint events between the hotel and the golf club, Webster and Gibbons this month hosted a gaggle of happy hacks for the Irish Media Golf Cup. The cup will be taken north of the Border for the first time after a team representing Belfast media held off the Irish Mail to win by a point.

A team representing the red tops hacked their way into third place, while TV3, in a twist of numeric irony, came fourth.