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  • Andy Murray serves up a lift for his home town with new luxury hotel venture

    It was confirmed today that the usa Open and Olympic champion has acquired Cromlix House Hotel, with reference to Dunblane. His plans to remodel the elegant Victorian mansion right into a 15-room five star destination will create as much as 40 new jobs for the area people and generate significant custom for other businesses nearby.

    Following extensive refurbishment, the Perthshire hotel is scheduled to re-open next spring, previous to the 2014 Ryder Cup, that is being staged a quick drive away at Gleneagles.

    Commenting on his new venture, Andy said: “I am pleased to have acquired Cromlix House and stay up for securing its future as a successful business.

    “By re-establishing Cromlix as a number one luxury hotel on the heart of the Dunblane community we can attract new visitors to the world, create numerous new jobs and concentrate on supporting other local businesses. I’m pleased so that they can give something back to the community I grew up in.”

    The hotel would be managed on behalf of Andy by Inverlochy Castle Management International (ICMI), who already manage eight other renowned independent properties around Scotland, including Inverlochy Castle, near Fort William, Greywalls Hotel in Gullane and The Atholl, in Edinburgh. ICMI’s group of industry experts includes Albert Roux OBE, KFO, owner of Le Gavroche in London, the 1st UK restaurant to be awarded thee Michelin stars.

    The refurbished Cromlix House will boast a Chez Roux restaurant offering fine dining using locally sourced produce. With Chez Roux’s very cost-effective menu Andy hopes to draw diners from the Dunblane and Stirling area, as achieved by the logo elsewhere in Scotland.

    Previous owners, the Eden family, who ran the hotel for greater than 30 years said they were delighted the venue was staying in local hands after completing its sale to the tennis champion. a well-liked wedding venue through the years, Andy’s brother Jamie married his Colombian wife Alejandra Gutierrez there in 2010.

    Situated in beautiful countryside, lower than five miles from Dunblane, Cromlix Home is set in 50 acres of secluded woodlands and garden, with a good looking trout loch. The hotel currently has 14 bedroom suites, a chapel, reception hall, two drawing rooms, conservatory, dining room, library and meeting rooms.

  • New Hotel INvestment Tool from AECOM

    AECOM has launched a brand new interactive tool called HINT (Hotel INvestment Tool).

    HINT allows users to check whether a possible hotel development idea is perhaps economically viable at a totally early stage.

    The easy-to-use tool allows users to work out the capability value, cost and return on investment by entering several variables, akin to location, hotel typology and revenue assumptions.

    The tool works by combining AECOM’s operational knowledge with cost data from Davis Langdon, an AECOM company.

    This will provide clients with an early check on their idea while not having to pay for giant studies too early inside the process.

    “What makes this tool unique is the manner that it brings together intelligence from two disciplines (cost consultancy and economic feasibility) that traditionally was commissioned separately,” commented Kevin Underwood, AECOM’s global head of leisure + culture.

    “We are excited to share HINT with our clients and hotel operator contacts who’ve expressed a keen interest in using a device akin to this that offers an early indication of a hotel project’s economic viability.”

    AECOM could be demonstrating the tool at stand 28 on the IHIF in Berlin, which runs from the March 4th-6th 2013.

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  • News: Le Méridien Atlanta Perimeter opens following $20m refurbishment

    Le Méridien Atlanta Perimeter has opened its doors within the bustling Perimeter Center business district. The hotel, owned by RockBridge Capital and managed by Wischermann Partners, is the primary Le Méridien hotel to open within the Atlanta metropolitan area and one among nine new Le Méridien hotels slated to open inside the next one year.

    Following a comprehensive, 12-month, $20 million renovation, Le Méridien Atlanta Perimeter boasts 275 spacious guest rooms and suites in conjunction with an out of doors pool, fitness centre, spacious 12th floor club lounge, and 10,000 square feet of state-of-the-art meeting and event space.

    “The opening of Le Méridien Atlanta Perimeter is a real milestone as we kick off a year marked by strong growth momentum for Le Méridien,” said Brian Povinelli, Global Brand Leader, Le Méridien and Westin Hotels.

    “Since its acquisition by Starwood, Le Méridien has transformed under the corporate right into a contemporary, design-led lifestyle brand, and we’re proud to debut Le Méridien within the Southeast’s capital of industrial and culture with such great partners as RockBridge Capital and Wischermann Partners.” Added Povinelli.

    Guests may enjoy a range of coffees, cocktails and fine wines at Longitude 84, the hotel’s sleek new lounge, and Portico, the hotel’s ground-floor restaurant slated to open this spring, will feature an eclectic menu of worldwide inspired cuisine and a spacious terrace ideal for personal gatherings and special events.

    “The inspiring design featured through the spacious guest rooms and public areas, the newly created club lounge and the addition of a brand new restaurant with an expansive patio complete the transformation of this property,” said Jim Merkel, President and CEO of RockBridge. “The rebranding coupled with the strength of the Starwood system, will position Le Méridien Atlanta Perimeter because the premier hotel out there. We’re involved in adding this showcase property to our portfolio.”

    Le Méridien Atlanta Perimeter features the Le Méridien Hub experience, which re-interprets the standard lobby right into a celebration place for creative people to converse, debate, and exchange. Le Méridien Hub offers both guests and locals an artistic atmosphere where contemporary, curated artwork sets the surroundings.

    Le Méridien Hub further builds at the brand’s award-winning arrival experience and low culture, curated by Le Méridien brand’s Cultural Curator Jérôme Sans. Le Méridien arrival contains four elements: large-scale artwork in high impact areas to reset the mind and stimulate dialogue and curiosity; the sensory experience, illustrated through Le Méridien signature scent, sound and use of sunshine, making a unique and distinctive atmosphere; UNLOCK ART™ programme, featuring LM100 ™ artist designed key card collections that not just offer access to the guestroom but additionally to Le Méridien affiliated contemporary cultural centers within the city; and a 24-hour soundtrack curated by Sans.

    Le Méridien Atlanta Perimeter is as regards to Fortune 500 businesses and the department stores and restaurants within the adjacent Perimeter Mall. The celebrated Buckhead shopping district, Atlanta Botanical Gardens, Zoo Atlanta and High Museum of Art are all nearby, and the hotel is found just five miles from DeKalb-Peachtree Airport (PDK) and 27 miles from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL).

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  • Brits on holiday throw caution to the wind

    Following the outbreak of violence at the island of Borneo a brand new poll from Holiday Extras recently asked customers whether or not they could be do away with by an adverse piece of stories coverage at their chosen holiday destination.

    And the survey revealed that holidaymakers pay less attention to warnings about their safety than expected.
    While the Foreign Office is advising travellers to stick faraway from Borneo, over a 1/2 intrepid men said that trouble within the sun wouldn’t hinder their travel plans in any respect. Only 34 per cent of fellows said that a significant incident or crime would stop them from holidaying wherever they wanted.

    Women were more cautious, with 51 per cent admitting that bad news a few country or resort can be enough to lead them to change their plans to go to that destination.

    15 per cent of Holiday Extras customers declared that they’d avoid a resort for a year if it were negatively reported inside the news and 43 per cent said that they might avoid a destination for as much as six months.

    There will be no going back for 11 per cent of these polled, who said that they’d never book a vacation at that place once it have been perceived as dangerous.

    Andrea Clayton, Head of Insurance at Holiday Extras commented: “ The result of this poll show how positive British people feel about their travels on the earth – and it is a impressive thing.

    “Keep in mind, wherever you go on holiday and however daring you need to be so that you can always follow advice from the Foreign Office.  Just remember to have adequate travel insurance and don’t underestimate the quilt that you can require wherever you go.

  • News: Ryanair plans Stansted cuts

    Ryanair is planning to chop its London Stansted traffic by 9% over the approaching year (from 12.5m to 11.4m) after what it describes as ‘a further unjustified increase of Stansted’s already high charges of 6% from April 2013’.

    Ryanair has called on Stansted’s regulator, the CAA, to analyze whether this unjustified and unwarranted 6% price hike was a “sweetener” by Ferrovial/BAA’s sale of Stansted, which raised £1.5bn in proceeds for Ferrovial, even though Stansted’s traffic has declined from 24m p.a. to 17.5m p.a. during the last 6 years.

    Ryanair, which says it had planned to grow its Stansted traffic by 5% from April 2013, will now cut frequencies on 43 of its routes and decrease its weekly operations by over 170 flights, with the lack of 1.1m passengers (-9%) and over 1,100 jobs at Stansted,  in direct response to this unwarranted and unjustified 6% price hike.

    Ryanair called at the CAA regulator to provide an explanation for why Ferrovial/BAA is permitted to hike charges by 6% when UK inflation is under 3% and Stansted’s traffic continues to say no.

    Ryanair’s Robin Kiely said, “It’s bad enough that Ferrovial/BAA has doubled prices over the last 6 years and presided over record traffic falls at Stansted, however appears that the CAA now rewards this commercial failure by allowing Ferrovial/BAA to again raise fees in 2013 to make amends for its traffic declines in 2012.

    Given that Ferrovial/BAA has now agreed to sell the airport to MAG, it’s impossible to comprehend why the BAA monopoly is again raising Stansted’s prices from April 2013 when it clearly won’t be running the airport from that date. Ryanair and other Stansted airlines now must ask was this surprise price increase component to a “sweetener” package to steer MAG to pay £1.5bn for Stansted Are passengers and airlines at Stansted again being hit so as to boost the sales proceeds for the Spanish giant, Ferrovial, from the sale of BAA Stansted

    As the London Times has previously commented, the right response to a traffic decline will be to lower prices and grow volumes. Instead the Ferrovial/BAA monopoly, because it runs down the runway trousering £1.5bn from the sale of Stansted, is imposing an additional, unjustified 6% price increase one month prior to MAG’s takeover of Stansted. There’s something very smelly in regards to the timing and the dimensions of this price increase, that’s greater than double the velocity of UK inflation.

    Ryanair believes that this price increase, so that it will clearly be of no benefit to Ferrovial/BAA, was component to a “sweetener” to MAG so that it will boost the sale price of Stansted Airport. The CAA must now investigate the explanations for this price increase and take action to give protection to Stansted users from this latest example of price gouging from Ferrovial/BAA. ”

    The sale of the Stansted Airport to Manchester Airport Group (MAG) was completed for £1.5 billion earlier this week.

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