Edinburgh strikes it lucky with five-star Missoni launch

Published on Monday 26 October 2009 20:40

EDINBURGH'S location as the flagship site for the new Missoni Hotel brand was down more to opportunism than a specific plan to target the city, according to the owner, who has unveiled intentions to roll out the brand in a number of key cities.

At the official launch of the five-star hotel on the site of the former council offices on the Royal Mile, Kurt Ritter admitted that the choice of Edinburgh was due to a "bottom-up strategy" employed by Brussels-based hotel group Rezidor.

Rather than start in top-flight hotel cities such as Paris or Milan, the choice of Edinburgh reflected an "opportunistic strategy".

Ritter, the Belgian chief executive of Rezidor, said Edinburgh was a "good hotel city", but he mused on how he would phrase the choice of Edinburgh to launch the first in a series of designer-themed hotels.

"How should I say that? It is not a strategical location to launch a brand," he admitted.

"Not in a negative way, but in a reality way, what I have seen is the fashion brands have grown very slowly.

"They have one in Milan and Paris; we said let's do it the other way around.

"Where there is an opportunity and a city that fits, we go."

Ritter, whose group launches 50 to 60 hotels a year worldwide, just wanted to get the ball rolling. Other hotel groups have done similar deals, such as Bulgari, which formed a joint venture with Marriot International in 2001. Missoni-brand hotels are also due to open in Kuwait, Cape Town, Oman and Ilha de Cajaba, Brazil.

Rezidor agreed in 2005 to launch a fashion hotel with family-owned Italian fashion house Missoni. The group also owns Radisson SAS hotels – which includes the Radisson Royal Mile, a two-minute walk downhill from the Missoni Hotel. Ritter said the group had been in talks with the site's owner, Bank of Scotland, to take up the new hotel site, but the final decision to make it the first Missoni took "a few years".

Gordon McKinnon, now the executive vice-president and chief branding officer for Rezidor's US partner company, Carlson Hotels Worldwide, was behind the launch of the Missoni brand.

He is not concerned about delays to the new flagship Bank of Scotland branch which is due to open on the ground floor of the hotel but was boarded up at the time the group was welcoming Edinburgh through its colourful doors for the first time.

"It will be interesting to see what brand they put on it," said McKinnon. "We are, above all else, realists, or you would never open any hotels.

"It is not a perfect business. You have to accept these compromises or you never open a hotel. If we had waited on the perfect opportunity we would have waited too long."

In the four years since the group decided to launch a new hotel brand, the economy has suffered a huge downturn.

Ritter, who said his 20 years at the head of Rezidor makes him longest serving hotel company chief executive in the world, said: "We are now active in 61 countries. You just have to appreciate it in some it goes very well, in some it goes bad, and then you have the in-betweens. Scotland is not the worst we have."

Despite booking a small loss and a downturn in revenues in the first six months of the year, Ritter is keen to pursue his expansion plans – although he admitted they have been tempered.

"That is what we do – our company is a growth story, and if you don't grow, standstill is going backwards," he said. "You cannot stand still. Of course you have to be careful. We are not as courageous as we were when the times were up."

Nor is he concerned that the hotel property – which Rezidor occupies on a long lease – is now up for sale by Bank of Scotland's parent, Lloyds Banking Group, for 37 million. That is just the hotel business.

"This is probably the best location you could get. We were not alone after this location, others were interested too. It took time but it came."