It was lauded as ‘a most impressive and forward-thinking project’ in 1965, the year it first opened.
The Coylumbridge Hotel in Aviemore was built by The Rank Organisation to capitalise on the new chairlift on Cairn Gorm, and the start of a skiing boom.
Rank’s £800,000 investment was welcomed as going to an area where it was most needed.
The 175-bed hotel, built by Charles Gray of Dundee, was on a 60-acre site by the River Druie, and close to the road leading to the ski slopes.
Rank made it clear it was to be an all-year round venue for conferences and tourism from Europe and America as well as homegrown.
There was to be a ski school, skating and curling rink.
There was plenty of snow in those days, and Cairn Gorm developers assumed it would go on for ever.
Coylumbridge Hotel was popular with families
Aviemore would become the Scottish Chamonix — and so it proved for a while, with 750,000 visitors to the area in 1966, when the Aviemore Centre hotel and leisure complex was also opened by a subsidiary of House of Fraser.
By 1968, the Earl of Dundee was telling the House of Lords that without doubt, “this is one of the best skiing areas in Europe”.
Aviemore had become a land of milk and honey, with Coylumbridge buzzing with families and groups all year round.
As long as there was snow, the area thrived, and the following 10 years or so were a heyday for Aviemore and the Coylumbridge as more business sprang up to service the influx of visitors.
But then the snow stopped. Winters simply got milder and milder.
The rot set in at the Aviemore Centre, with much of it demolished in the 1990s.
Aviemore Centre and Coylumbridge taken on by new owner
Cairn Gorm mountain’s history has subsequently been a battle against decline, punctuated by the odd winter of decent snow to lift hopes again.
Meanwhile the Coylumbridge was taken on by entrepreneur Reo Stakis in 1986, who also took on the Aviemore Centre.
Coylumbridge’s fortunes revived, thanks to determined efforts to market the area all year round.
Visitors talked of it as a fun place for families, welcoming and hospitable, with toddler plays sessions, Cyril the Squirrel’s indoor soft play centre and swimming classes in the two pools.
There was tennis, disco, archery, badminton, netball, puppet theatre, bingo, magic shows and musical entertainment.
The aspiration to attract business was notched down in favour of families.
The good times didn’t last
Ski breaks continued, marketed at the young, and by the end of the 90s, children who’d had fun there were now bringing their own children.
But the good times didn’t last.
Stakis realised that although Coylumbridge was making money, the Aviemore Centre was not, and in the midst of a financial crisis, investment was drying up.
He sold out to the Hilton Group in 1999, amid local bitterness that Stakis had bought Aviemore without a proper plan, and had left it to rot.
The sorry saga of decline continued.
Hilton sold to current owner Britannia Hotels for an undisclosed sum in January 2019.
And that’s been a problem for the once thriving Coylumbridge.
Hotel chain hit by complaints
The year before it bought the hotel Britannia was voted the worst UK hotel chain by Which—for the sixth consecutive year.
The figures weren’t good, with 42% of guests likely to have a problem with their stay, and nearly a quarter making an official complaint to the hotel.
Poor customer service, poor quality of rooms, poor cleanliness, and poor food were among the litany of complaints.
The reputation was borne out last year when Dundee family the Johnstones described their stay at Coylumbridge as “the worst holiday and the worst hotel we have ever stayed in.”
Mum Pauline Johnstone said the hotel was “filthy” and a “shambles”, and cited grievances about the facility’s appearance, hygiene, cleanliness, food, queues, closed attractions and management attitude.
She said: “I certainly wouldn’t go back.
“It’s a beautiful part of the country, but I feel Britannia Hotels are letting down the area badly.”
Other reviewers echoed the family’s experience, with one calling Coylumbridge “the Highlands’ answer to Faulty Towers”.
Britannia offered the family a 10% refund and a discounted rate for a return stay, and refused to comment further.
It’s unclear what the future holds for the once-loved Coylumbridge Hotel, but its many former fans will be hoping for some investment which could help bring back the good old days.
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