A HOTEL investor has unveiled development plans after buying his first hospitality business in Scotland.
Benjamin Andrews has hailed the acquisition of the “highly desired” Airds Hotel and Restaurant in Port Appin which was completed late last year as its former owners, Shaun and Jenny McKivragan, retired after 19 years.
The purchase, for an undisclosed sum, was said by agent Colliers to reflect the continuing popularity of premises in prime tourist locations, despite Omicron headwinds.
Mr Andrews said he has long harboured an ambition to operate a hotel in Scotland after travelling extensively around the world.
He said: “We have plans for the hotel. We’ve put something together. Nothing specific right now but we would like to keep the Airds where it is, what it’s known for, the basics, which is this: good accommodation and fine dining.”
“We also want to offer more to the guests,” said Mr Andrews. “So we are going to push that fine dining further and offer a lunch service.
“We have some land around the hotel both in front of the hotel leading down to the water and to the back of the hotel which we are going to develop.
“We have had a landscape architect in already. We are going to open up some of it for some outdoor seating and also looking to expand the accommodation."
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He continued: “There is a bit of land here which is not being used right now, where I’ve not decided as of yet whether we do something along the lines of a glamping hut line or shepherd huts.
“It’s not fixed but I am going to develop along those lines out the back on that land.
“That’s what we’ve got in place so far.”
The hotel is starting off with a winter discount offer running until the end of March.
Mr Andrews continued: “This is my first hospitality business in Scotland. I have experience overseas. I’m born and raised in Aberdeenshire along the River Dee in Torphins beside Banchory but I left Scotland in 1996 and have travelled the world.
“I’m an engineer by education but I ran some hospitality businesses in Singapore and I had a small business in Copenhagen in Denmark.
“During my travels around the world, of course, you meet people from all over and when they find out you are Scottish the first thing they say is they would really like to go and visit Scotland someday. Everybody, wherever you go, that is one of the first things they say to you.
“I can understand that. Being here in Port Appin is what I’ve always wanted to do, come back to Scotland and open or take over a hotel on the west coast of Scotland.
“I think it is a great place to be.”
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He accepts that taking on a hospitality business at this stage in the pandemic could be a daunting prospect for some.
“Of course, it could be for some, but honestly speaking, I enjoy this kind of thing. I like a challenge and I will make a success of this.
“It may take two, three, four or five years, but I am not afraid of hard work, I am not afraid of changing things, learning things, so that we make a success of it and my manager and my staff enjoy themselves, they enjoy being here, and of course the guests as well.”
Robert Smithson, associate director in Colliers’ hotels team, said that the commercial real estate specialists handled the sale of 70 hotels across the UK last year.
Many were “quality assets in coastal and country locations popular with tourists”.
He said that while the full impact of Omicron is not yet known, investment in the hotels sector is expected to be positive in 2022.
Mr Smithson said: “The sale of the Airds again underlines the popularity of quality hotels in beautiful tourist locations.”
The Colliers team also handled the sale of the Fife coastal premises, the Old Manor Hotel, in Lundin Links, from a guide price of £1.2 million, to the Wallace family, with former owner Alistair Saddler pursuing other business interests.
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