‘Hoteliers of the Year’ title for ‘Belfray’ owners

Revealing that he and his business partner were “absolutely delighted” with their win, Brian Loughlin said the amazing thing about the win was that it was off the back of votes submitted my members of the public.

“We want to thanks all the people who voted for us. All I can say is that we must be doing something right,” he said, adding: “The win is all the sweeter because the third anniversary of our opening was on Friday.”

He continued: “When we opened we had eight staff and now we have 55. It is great that the business is booming and that we are able to offer employment to local people. We believe very much in trying to help our community through our work and we try and keep everything we do based in the local market so that the money contributes directly to the local economy. The same is true when we get work done, where some of the tenders might be cheaper, but we prefer opting for local firms because it benefits local people, and it in turn benefits us.”

“When we bought the place it was very run down. Initially we found it difficult to get banks to trust us with finance and it was the same with our suppliers in terms of credit. We had to overcome all those obstacles in order to build the business,” said Brian in a reflective mood.

Recalling Thursday night’s win, he revealed that he could hardly contain his anticipation: “At the function I could hardly sit still. I had my jacket off, then I put it on again, then I took it off...You usually find that companies from Belfast always win these things, so we were absolutely delighted to win.

“For us this is just the start, but apparently they never saw votes like it,” said Brian about the level of voting the Belfray received.

In addition to winning the public vote, the proprietors also had to submit a synopsis about the business and what they had achieved.

“We lived and worked in Jersey for a very long time, and when we came back things were difficult for us so we had to work very very hard to get the business off the ground. That said, we could not have done this without the support we have received from the local people,” said Brian, adding: “This really has been a momentous year for us.”