2006 Award Winners FAMILY FRIENDLY HOTEL OF THE YEAR 2006

Kelly's Resort Hotel

It is especially appropriate that this renowned family-run hotel - with a history spanning three centuries - should be selected for the Family-Friendly Hotel Award this year. It really has everything, for everyone: luxurious accommodation; spacious public areas, where a famous art collection is displayed; leisure facilities which include a superb new spa; excellent food, offered in two restaurants of very different styles; a legendary wine list (much of it directly imported); and service which is invariably exemplary. Children are made very welcome (cot available without charge, baby sitting arranged), and there’s a supervised playroom & children’s playground - as well as miles of sandy beaches for the bucket & spade brigade. But the number of children accepted at any one time is very sensibly limited to avoid an imbalance. This establishment could clearly qualify for short-listing in many other award categories; the reason we selected Kelly’s Resort Hotel as Family-Friendly Hotel of the Year is that there are so few establishments in Ireland looking after this neglected segment of the discerning traveller’s market - and this outstanding hotel, which offers so much to guests of all ages and varying interests, is a model which others would do well to emulate. There could be no more appropriate choice for this important award.