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A leading North East hotel is celebrating a successful first year in business, which led to a three-fold rise in the number of staff.
As well as tripling its employee numbers from 20 to 60 in the past 12 months, the Mercure Darlington King’s Hotel, at Darlington town centre, has also enjoyed an average 10 per cent increase in revenue month-on-month.
The Priestgate property, owned and operated by Newcastle-based Cairn Hotel Group, launched in October 2012 following an £8 million refurbishment of the former King’s Head Hotel, which had been ravaged by fire five years earlier. Since then it has been operating successfully under Accor Group’s Mercure brand and has enjoyed consistently high occupancy rates, with its 83 en-suite bedrooms fully booked on average two to three nights every week.
This success has allowed the hotel’s management team to recruit a number of apprentices from Darlington College’s catering department and offer free training to 30 unemployed young people, leading in some cases to permanent posts.
General Manager, Dale Needham, said: “The past 12 months have been a whirlwind for us here at the Mercure Darlington King’s Hotel and it’s been fantastic to see such high numbers across the board.”
