Chardon to take on new hotels

HOTEL management company Chardon is to add more than 600 bedrooms in the next two years as it takes on new properties in Edinburgh, Stirling, Brighton and Canary Wharf.

Chief executive Maurice Taylor is to invest £12 million in a new 125-bedroom hotel at Edinburgh Airport, adjacent to its existing Quality Hotel at Ingliston. Both will become Holiday Express branded hotels.

The Glasgow-based group has also submitted plans for a 150-bed Hilton in 
Stirling. Taylor said the 
new hotel would feature a restaurant managed by a top-name chef, whose identity he declined to reveal ahead of signing a master franchise for the “household name” in Scotland.

Taylor confirmed that 
final plans for the hotel would be going before the local authority for final sign-off next month.

Chardon is also in talks to take over the management of two hotels in England: a 300-bed Doubletree by Hilton hotel currently being built in Canary Wharf, and an Indigo Hotel in Brighton for InterContinental Hotel Group.

The company last month took on the management 
of a Holiday Inn at London Southend Airport, a Holiday Inn Express in Windsor, and a Best Western Plus Coniston Hotel and Restaurant in Kent.

Chardon currently manages 35 hotels and seven health and fitness clubs throughout the UK. The company and its investors own half of its hotel portfolio and restaurants La Bonne Auberge and the Limelight Bar & Grill as well as an online discount service, Hoteldeals.co.uk.

Maurice Taylor Interview in The Scotsman tomorrow »