The councillors of Aberdeen City have established plans for a future four-star hotel next to Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre in order to boost the city’s image. It will help attract investment high-profile events. The core idea is to create profit not just for this hotel, but for other hotels in the city, its restaurants and taxi services, which under the current plans the attraction of the new hotel will help increase. The initial financial scheme discussed at the Full Council meeting with AECC produced too much risk for the council due to the instability of the present economic climate. Therefore alternative financial schemes were considered, with the end result being that the City Councillors agreed a grant of £568,000 towards the with the AECC themselves contributing £2.3 million for architectural, legal and further professional fees for the scheme.
The internal auditors of the city’s council will continue their involvement in the hotel development plan in order to review and ensure that the venue continues to deliver maximum value for the public money invested in it. Not only could the creation of a new hotel benefit their image and city popularity, but also Offshore Europe. This can be done by expanding the AECC’s facilities in creating new parking space with distinctive foundations for temporary exhibition structures, which could be easily installed and disassembled when not in use. To fund this aspect of the development plan, Scottish Enterprise grant funding will be explored.
The professional advice suggested that by building an hotel that provides four-star accommodation, some of their economic losses could be reversed and boost the AECC’s business. The venue alone supplies approximately £80 million towards Aberdeen City and Shire, which is less than the investment of public funds. The figures show a good return on public money and create confidence in relation to the investing and building of the new hotel.
