In his Chief Executive's Review of the Dalata Hotel Group plc Annual Report, Dermot Crowley writes of a commitment to innovation. Dalata describes its Purpose 'to grow and evolve as an innovative and sustainable international hotel company…'. Innovation is a key differentiator for Dalata Hotel Group as it develops innovative technologies aimed to improve efficiencies and productivity and meet customers’ expectations. Dalata's philosophy is to improve the customer experience - as well as its employees' working environment - by being open to changing the way they do things and the services they offer in a rapidly changing business environment. The business reporting environment for regulated entities is also rapidly changing. Reporting for YE22, Dalata has led the way as the first listed entity in Ireland, if not Europe, to embrace an innovative approach to producing and publishing its Annual Financial Report.

The FRC, in the opening of Section 1 of its Guidance on the Strategic Report, "encourages entities to experiment and be innovative in the drafting of their annual reports". In this regard with its most recent Annual Report, Dalata has certainly delivered on all fronts producing a digital-first responsive, accessible and interactive publication designed as a web-based format, developed to be fully ESEF compliant through native XHTML and audited accordingly. While the vast majority of issuers (and arguably their auditors) continue to fudge the ESEF compliance through convenient yet ineffective PDF-to-HTML conversions, Dalata's approach to innovation makes them an innovative outlier and a benchmark for Structured Financial Reporting across Europe's regulated markets. If you would like to learn more about Dalata's outstanding results for YE22 you can view its fully native Annual Report here - or if you would like to review the unofficial PDF format which does not satisfy a company’s obligations under the Disclosure and Transparency Rules (DTRs) you can request a copy by contacting Dalata's Company Secretarial office.