New lease of life for boutique hotel

About the business

The Eglinton Arms is a 34-bed hotel based in Eaglesham, Renfrewshire and was originally a coaching inn, built in 1834. Following renovations and investment, the prestigious hotel now boasts banqueting facilities and a popular all-day restaurant.

How Business Gateway has helped

To respond to challenges from the pandemic, the Eglinton Arms team identified an opportunity to develop the land next to the hotel and transform this into an outdoor dining area and beer garden. Operations Director Tuathal Breheny approached Business Gateway for support to make this a reality.

Through Business Gateway, Tuathal was able to access 1:1 support from a business adviser and this helped the business secure over £9,000 from the European Regional Development Fund.

Tuathal also used Business Gateway’s free Research Service to access market research reports, company reports and credit checks as well as information about the local demographics. This bolstered their business plan and helped make the case for planning permission.

The lease was approved in February 2021, and the business anticipates this expanded dining area will eventually help bring in a further £250,000 of additional sales per year.

Tuathal said, “Like many in hospitality, we knew that we had to adapt quickly to the pandemic, and for us, the lack of outdoor dining was a significant challenge and limited our ability to survive the crisis. Fortunately, we were able to secure the lease for the nearby land, and by working with Business Gateway and East Renfrewshire Council, we were able to take our concept forward and make it a reality.”

Tuathal also accessed support through DigitalBoost, Scotland’s national digital upskilling programme, delivered by Business Gateway, which helped them with a range of upgrades for the outdoor area. This included changes to the till system, extending the WiFi connection outdoors and ensuring the new systems were compatible with the rest of the business.

Tuathal said: “We knew there was an opportunity to expand our business with the new dining area, but for this to happen, we had to invest and upgrade in our point-of-sale technology, ensuring staff could take orders and payment regardless of where they were on site. The DigitalBoost programme helped us identify and implement what we needed to do, ensuring efficiency across our entire business.”