Malmaison and Hotel du Vin have been bought by KSL Capital an American venture capital company in a deal worth an estimated £180m. MWB Group Holdings, the hotels’ parent company, called in administrators from Deloitte last November. Following the announcement of the deal Malmaison revealed that it would be spending around £10m investing in its [...]

Skene House Hotel Suites in Aberdeen has become the first in Scotland to offer ‘female-friendly’ accommodation, after winning accreditation by women’s social networking site Maiden Voyage, an award-winning global business travel network for professional women. The hotel has been invited to join its exclusive portfolio of ‘Female Friendly’ hotels. Female guests benefit from enhanced security [...]

Jamie Oliver’s scored a hat trick in Scotland with Jamie’s Italian Aberdeen, on the back of his Glasgow and Edinburgh concerns. It opened last month on Union Street in the former Esselmont & Macintosh department store, and is also the most northerly of the celebrity chef’s UK estate. The design of the two storey space [...]

Scotland had the highest hotel occupancy and revenue figures of any part of the UK amid a mixed picture for the sector during 2012 according to the latest report by accountants and business advisers PKF. The annual figures, which were clearly influenced heavily by Aberdeen, showed Scottish hotel occupancy was up 0.3% year on year [...]

School friends Garreth Wood of Signature Pubs and Amicus Apple owner Calum Mackinnon have formed Amicus Ventures with the opening of the £1m Nox nightclub in Aberdeen. The high end club is on Justice Mill Lane, on the site of the former Bad Apple. The opulant club is situated over two floors with amphitheatre style [...]

Aberdeen bar owner Joseph Enem has been found guilty of dealing crack cocaine, a Class A drug, at the High Court in Edinburgh. Enem who ran the Moonlight Bar in King Street, was caught with £150K of the drug. He is now awaiting sentence.

Business partners Adrian Gomes and Andrew Sanways have taken on the lease at the former Belmont Bar in Aberdeen. The Belmont Street bar will re-open in August with a new name, The Tippling House. Gomes, who currently runs Aberdeen mobile catering company Ten Dollar Shake, told DRAM, “The name is what 18th Century Jamaican underground [...]

Signature Pubs has sold Aberdeen’s Bieldside Inn to PB Developments Ltd for just under £1.5m. The pub was Signature Pubs’ very first unit, and was given a major refurbishment in 2004. Garreth Wood of Signature Pubs told DRAM, “There is obviously a nostalgia attached to Bieldside, as it was our very first purchase, but it [...]

Glasgow publicans that serve drunk customers will be targeted as part of a new police and council initiative that will kick in on 1st October. It’s objective is to combat the city’s alcohol issues. The measures were revealed earlier this month by Councillor Gordon Matheson, Leader of Glasgow City Council, and Strathclyde Police Chief Constable [...]

Scotland’s hotels are outperforming the rest of the UK, according to PKF’s latest monthly snapshot of hotel occupancy levels. In May, occupancy levels rose by 0.6% to 77% compared with the same time last year with England reporting 73.3% occupancy rates and Wales 74.9%.Yield per room also increased by 3.1% to £55.83 in Scotland. The [...]