By Ian McConnell
HIGHLAND Coast Hotels, on the North Coast 500 tourist route, is offering people living within 15 miles of any of its properties discounts on restaurant and bar bills year-round and on overnight stays between October and March.
Since its launch in April 2021, Highland Coast Hotels has acquired the Kylesku Hotel, as well as the Newton Lodge in Ullapool, on the west coast. It has also bought the Royal Golf Hotel in Dornoch and the Royal Marine Hotel in Brora, on the east coast.
All of the hotels are situated on or around the North Coast 500 route.
The group, which recently secured a £4.45 million loan from the taxpayer-funded Scottish National Investment Bank (SNIB), said its “locals community card” scheme would offer a 30% discount in the restaurants and bars of the four hotels all year round. It added that the programme would also offer a 50% discount on an overnight stay at any of its hotels, from October to March inclusive.
READ MORE: Scotland overseas travel rules: Dare we hope scrapping of tests will stick now?: Ian McConnell
Anyone living within 15 miles of one of Highland Coast Hotels’ properties is eligible to apply for the card. Applications can be made through the local hotel’s community page, the group noted, or at the properties.
Highland Coast Hotels said eligible residents will be able to use the discount across all four hotels, “offering the chance for those based in Dornoch to visit Kylesku, for example”. It noted three of its hotels have recently reopened following a “short winter closure”, with the Royal Marine Hotel in Brora due to reopen in April following an "extensive renovation”.
The group said the new scheme would “further Highland Coast Hotels’ commitment to the region by encouraging locals to come together with friends and family to enjoy the hotels, each of which sits at the heart of its community”.
READ MORE: UK interest rates: Push for sharper rise flags scale of troubles: Ian McConnell
David Whiteford, chairman of Highland Coast Hotels, said: “Our locals discount scheme is just one of several community initiatives from the group. It’s vitally important that locals can socialise in our premises with friends and family and feel just as welcome as our visitors from elsewhere. Indeed, Highland Coast Hotels already invests in the surrounding area, from listing local food and drink suppliers, [and] arts and crafts producers as well as pointing our guests in the direction of local activity providers. By hosting regular community liaison group meetings with community leaders we’ve already managed to create collaborative opportunities that in turn should create, we hope, more local career opportunities and business start-ups.”
SNIB last month said its funding for the group would “support tourism and employment opportunities in a remote area of north Scotland, where tourism is crucial for the local economy and is vital to sustain communities and businesses”.
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 here