The Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC) has been given the go-ahead for a pioneering hotel and hotel school development in Edinburgh.
M&G Real Estate is funding the £350 million Haymarket Edinburgh development which will be developed by QMile Group.
The completed hotel will be operated by EICC under a franchise agreement with Hyatt Hotels Corporation.
The 362 bedroom, four star hotel will address conference demand issues for the EICC - which has hosted almost 1.5 million delegates at the conference centre venue since opening in 1995 - while it is claimed the hotel school will help address recruitment challenges faced by the hospitality industry in Scotland.
READ MORE: Edinburgh Council set to lease 'biggest hotel' in city
Together, the hotel and hotel school are expected to provide significant job creation and economic benefit for the city.
As an integral part of the hotel development a hotel school and training academy that will offer a career path for students and trainees while providing a pipeline of qualified people for Scotland’s leisure and tourism industry.
The hotel school will build close relationships with organisations including the Scottish Tourism Alliance, Edinburgh Hotels Association, British Hospitality Association, VisitScotland, Scottish Enterprise and Skills Development Scotland to ensure that the training offered matches the needs and recruitment challenges of the industry.
The hotel school would operate a number of programmes at different academic levels, with the EICC envisaging that through interacting with different academic institutions it could run courses from NVQ level through to undergraduate and postgraduate degree curriculums.
READ MORE: Scottish conference centre hits records and hails TEDSummit win
The EICC believes that by incorporating the hotel school into the hotel it will be creating a scenario where students would be working in a “live” operating environment.
Marshall Dallas, chief executive of the EICC, said: “The hotel and hotel school will take our fantastic venue to the next level on UK and international terms.
"EICC has had many supporters that have helped guide us through the last couple of years, taking the hotel project from the idea stage to a fully formed, robust, business case. Top of that list would be EICC’s board of directors, including our inspiring and tenacious chair, councillor George Gordon, and officers at the City of Edinburgh Council.”
“We know the events industry is experiencing a skills gap that is only becoming more of an issue.
"The hotel and hotel school will go some way to alleviating that challenge while putting the EICC on an even stronger foot and keeping the venue at the forefront of Scotland’s overall proposition when it comes to business tourism.”
Audrey Cumberford, principal and chief executive at Edinburgh College which has signed up as the college partner to the hotel school, said: “The hotel training academy creates a unique opportunity to lead on the delivery of future skills in the sector via a new model for industry-education collaboration and delivery.
"Importantly, the initiative enables us to create a pipeline of talent which speaks to key drivers for enterprise and skills development in the region.
"It is vital we create a range of bespoke programmes, meeting the needs of our business partner and our students, ranging from schools to full-time, part-time and apprenticeship opportunities."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article