Highland-based hospitality group Turas Hotels has appointed a new Head of Marketing and its first internal Revenue Manager, signalling further expansion across Scotland.
Jennifer Macdonald-Nethercott has taken on the senior marketing role, while Johan Van Heerden has been named as the group’s first in-house Revenue and Operations Manager. The appointments are part of a wider leadership restructure that includes a new Director of Sustainability role.
Formerly known as the J and R Group, Turas Hotels operates along the A9 corridor and delivers close to 80,000 room nights per year. Its portfolio includes the Cairngorm Hotel and the Boat Country Inn in the Cairngorms National Park, the Seaforth in Ullapool, the Glen Mhor Hotel in Inverness, and McKays in Pitlochry. It also owns the Uile-bheist Distillery and Brewery in Inverness.
Macdonald-Nethercott, who brings 25 years of experience in Highland tourism, led the group’s rebrand to Turas. The Gaelic word means “journey”. She is now responsible for the rollout of the ‘Stay-Discover-Dine’ brand strategy and the group’s customer rewards scheme.
“This is a really exciting position,” said Macdonald-Nethercott. “It’s a privilege to create and develop the look and feel of the brand and to impart the vision to our teams and guests. A stay with Turas is much more than just a bedroom. Our properties are offering guests quality food and drink, music and entertainment and experiences such as distillery tours.”
Van Heerden, based at the Boat Country Inn, steps into a newly created group-wide role focused on revenue and operations.
Victoria Erasmus, previously instrumental in the Glen Mhor Hotel’s win at the World Sustainable Travel and Hospitality Awards in Belize, has been named Director of Sustainability. Erasmus, who is co-chair of Visit Inverness Loch Ness, will lead the development of Climate Plans and diversity and inclusion policies across the group.
Further leadership appointments include Delia Keating as Head of Recruitment and Fiona Connor overseeing HR. Sales roles have been filled by Charlotte Sukhraj, who brings experience from Radisson and Marriott, and Peter Thornton, formerly with Historic Environment Scotland. A centralised Accounts Team will support all properties.
“Through the Turas model, we are able to use our talented people across the whole group while cross-promoting our individual properties under the Turas umbrella,” said Turas Hotels Director Richard Drummond. “We knew marketing would have a major role to play moving forward. Jennifer understands the vision and was a natural choice for us.”
The group is looking to scale further within the sector.
“Having the advantage of scale is definitely the way we see hospitality going,” said fellow Director Jon Erasmus. “Single hotels are having to do everything from hiring and purchasing to HR and dealing with complex employment law and red tape. Streamlining critical functions across the whole business will free up our General Managers to focus on what’s important: customer experience and quality.”
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