Hyatt Centric hotel will be game changer for EICC - Marshall Dallas

We recently hosted some of Hyatt Hotel Group’s leadership team in Edinburgh, at a private dinner that also brought together various city partners to mark the significant progress we have collectively made to bring a Hyatt Centric hotel to the city.

Taking place in the same week that the 350-bedroom hotel development won Deal of the Year at the Scottish Property Awards, our dinner was a chance to reflect on how far we have come since the ideation stage of the project – a project which has seen us establishing partnerships with Hyatt, M&G Real Estate, QMile Group, City of Edinburgh Council, and Edinburgh College.

From our perspective, the hotel, set to open its doors in 2025, is important as it will improve the strength of the EICC as an international event destination, generate revenues that will be reinvested into the conference centre and the hotel, ensuring there will be no ask of City of Edinburgh Council, and the hotel school will address recruitment challenges faced by Scotland’s hospitality industry.

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Since our conference centre opened in 1995, we have hosted over 2 million delegates, and are on track to produce economic impact of £1 billion over the next few years. The hotel and hotel school will add to that figure, while creating jobs in the sector.

Hyatt Hotel Group's Hyatt Centric hotel is due to open its doors in Edinburgh in 2025Hyatt Hotel Group's Hyatt Centric hotel is due to open its doors in Edinburgh in 2025
Hyatt Hotel Group's Hyatt Centric hotel is due to open its doors in Edinburgh in 2025

When you look back at the timeline for the hotel, the original idea, that eureka moment, came in 2015 while I was cold water swimming in Loch Venachar. I knew the hotel would have to be different, not just a bedroom factory or another budget offering resulting in a quick buck for the developer! In my mind, it needed to be an upscale hotel offering a distinctive food and beverage offering which would be attractive to EICC’s client base, while appealing to our local community.

The food hall concept came while attending an industry conference in Houston, Texas, when my sales and marketing director and I took a break from the formal black tie dining at the conference and walked downtown for a burger and a beer. We came across a place called Finn Hall and loved the food hall concept and thought, imagine what it would be like to re-create this with 350 bedrooms above it!

The hotel will occupy one of the most accessible locations in Edinburgh, on a Haymarket site well positioned for access to road, rail, and air routes; business locations and visitor attractions; and the EICC itself. The hotel will see tens of thousands of rooms being channelled to it via the EICC every year, while having a hotel under the control of the EICC will reduce the amount of business that historically has been lost, due to conference organisers not being able to secure a sufficient allocation of rooms for their delegates.

As we prepare to announce our annual results for 2022, it’s impossible not to think back to the hardships we have all faced since 2020. The pandemic shook our very foundations, in a year in which we should have been celebrating our 25th anniversary. Who could have guessed that a year later, in 2021, we would be Edinburgh’s principal vaccination centre.

As in life, in business you are going to get thrown curveballs, and never so much so than over the last few years.

Marshall Dallas, CEO, Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC)

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