Luxurious way to beat slump
ROCKLIFFE Hall Hotel, due to open on November 23, said the recession was driving bookings as people looked for luxury to lift them out of the gloom.
Sales and marketing director Wendy Benson said reservations for the Hurworth hotel, which is close to completing a £50m-plus transformation, had started arriving in January this year.
"Our first wedding was booked and confirmed by February. We were showing brides and grooms-to-be around a building site in the snow in hard hats and asking them to use their imagination!" she said.
Although Ms Benson was coy about the hotel’s target occupancy rates, she said, given that the venue had not yet been actively marketed, the response had been "quite incredible".
The recession was a double edged sword, she said. "There’s a bit of a price war going on in the corporate field in the local vicinity, but companies are prepared to pay extra for the quality that Rockliffe provides.
"There’s a huge interest from the local corporate market because there’s not a quality hotel product like us, certainly in the south of the region."
But the downside was that the hotel was having to operate to much shorter than expected lead times.
"Our first wedding is in January and it’s only been booked in the last three months. We are seeing very, very short lead times."
The hotel, which has already made it into the hallowed pages of the Conde Nast Johansens international hotel guide, will attend its first international exhibition aimed at travel agents dealing in the luxury end of the market at Cannes in December.
