THE current boom in Irish tourism can be seen daily on the increasingly cosmopolitan streets of Dublin and indeed throughout the country. Apart from swarms of continental students, American sailors and EU pen pushers there are plenty of high spending tourists around to swell revenue flows at hotels, restaurants and shops.

Against this healthy background for the industry the Jurys Hotel group this week announced record annual profits, anticipating further strong earnings growth in the current year. In its year to end April last the group returned record pre tax profits of £9.5 million, an improvement of 58 per cent achieved on a 19 per cent increase in turnover to £49.33 million.

Shareholders, apart from receiving total dividends of 6.3p a share, saw the value per share of their investment rise this week to a new high of 285p.