A pair of hotels in Stromness, Orkney, have gone up for sale at offers over £1.35 million just before the start of the peak tourism season in Scotland.
DM Hall Chartered Surveyors is marketing the Ferry Inn, on John Street, and Royal Hotel, on Victoria Street, both of them trading assets, as a “wonderful lifestyle opportunity”.
Current owners Gareth and Karen Crighton are selling up and heading into retirement.
The Ferry Inn is a past winner of the best pub-bar gong in the annual Highlands and Islands Tourism Awards.
The Royal Hotel is a former general trading store, with historic links to pioneers of the Hudson’s Bay Company, a retailer which now operates stores across North America.
Orkney has been crowned Scotland’s best place to live more than once in recent years.
DM Hall said the Stromness hotels offered potential buyers a “rare opportunity” to acquire a thriving lifestyle business in the islands’ second busiest town.
The hotels’ bars are “popular with locals and tourists alike” and “integral to the social infrastructure of the close-knit community”, the company added.
DM Hall continued: “The 18-bed Ferry Inn commands a view of the Marina and the port where the NorthLink ferry pulls gingerly into the tumbling network of flagstone streets, lanes, piers and slipways.
“The Royal Hotel nestles… among quaint, traditional shops and houses.”
Both hotels are “as busy as can be”, added DM Hall, which has offices in north and north-east locations including Aberdeen, Elgin, Inverness, Inverurie, Oban and Peterhead.
The Ferry Inn is a detached, harbour-side business with 12 individually styled rooms, with an additional six en-suite rooms in an annexe across the street. Its nautically-themed restaurant can host 85 people.
The Royal Hotel boasts 10 en-suite letting bedrooms and a function room which can host up to 120 guests.
Both hotels have been refurbished, and their en-suites upgraded and redecorated.
‘Timeless feel’
A spokesman for DM Hall said: “It is not hard to see the attraction. Stromness has a timeless feel to it.
“It has been shaped by the sea, as a whaling and fishing port, and is now the heart of the diving industry, with easy access to the haunted hulls of the wartime wrecks in Scapa Flow.
Competition to become the next owner of the two hotels is “likely to be so intense that expressions of interest should be submitted as a matter of some urgency”, DM Hall’s spokesman said.
The Scottish hotel market bounced back last year after a not surprisingly weak 2020, according to property giant Savills.
Scottish hotel investment total up from both 2020 and 2019
Figures released by Savills earlier this year showed investment volumes in the market hit £185m in 2021.
This marked a 166% increase on the £70m transacted in 2020 but was also up 12% on the 2019 total of £165m.
The total figure achieved in 2021 was transacted across 18 deals, with UK buyers accounting for 54%.
Savills said the market entered 2022 with “the strong sentiment of 2021 behind it” but facing a number of headwinds, including the end of furloughing and a return to 20% VAT.
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