A leading north-east hospitality chief has predicted Aberdeen’s beleaguered sector will “struggle” with a large increase in the number of hotels in the city.
Andrew Martin, the vice chairman of the City and Shire Hoteliers Association and also an associate director of the Scottish Centre for Tourism at Robert Gordon University, said it was “basic economics” that if supply increased and demand dropped then the industry would be squeezed.
But Mr Martin, who ran the city’s Carmelite hotel in the 1990s, predicted that an increase in leisure tourism which would balance the market.
Yesterday it was revealed that plans were being put in place to convert the second floor of Archibald Simpson’s pub into another hotel.
This week councillors also approved plans to convert the former Hamilton School into a hotel- with the existing Chester and Malmaison at either side.
Other developments are in the pipeline including a boutique venue at the former Woolmanhill hospital, large hotels at Marischal Square and the AECC as well as another plan for the former Robert Gordon’s College among others.
Mr Martin said that the city had previously been “unprepared” for the vast influxes to the city driven by visitors to Offshore Europe.
But given the economic downturn in the oil and gas industry he conceded that there would be “short term” problems.
He said: “Certainly the economic situation for hoteliers isn’t as good as it was two or three years ago. We have seen a deep decline in demand driven mostly by the Monday to Thursday bookings from the oil and gas industry.
“The occupancy is beginning to recover a bit but the room rate is still far lower than it was.
“We have had a softening of demand and an increase in supply- we have reached a situation where trading is far more difficult.
“But in the long to medium term, I think the city will really begin to compete in the leisure tourism market.
“I think the days of mass tourism have gone, people are increasingly looking for niche breaks and that’s where the city can really excel.”
Malmaison and the Chester Hotel did not respond to our requests for comment.
