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Fragrance Group has announced it has entered into a new agreement with hotel management company RBH to take over the operations of its four UK hotels.
The agreement follows the previous announcement by the group that its hotels The Lyndene, St Chads in Blackpool, The Townhouse in Manchester and the Duke of Cornwall in Plymouth were closed on 3 February 2021 and its staff made redundant by Bespoke Hotels Group.
The previous general managers of all four hotels have reportedly already been re-appointed to the same roles with the new company.
Additionally, Fragrance Group stated that over the coming weeks, a number of other staff will also be offered employment with RBH as soon as hotels are permitted to re-open when Covid-19 lockdown restrictions are lifted.
Martin Rogers, The Fragrance Group’s UK representative, said: “Since discovering that Bespoke Hotels had effectively closed four of our hotels by making all staff redundant without warning on February 3rd, we have had an intense fortnight of discussions, culminating in an agreement with RBH who became the new operators [of the hotels] on February 18th.”
Bespoke Hotels had previously released a statement in response to their decision to close the hotels, which said: “Despite exploring all avenues across the course of many months, the devastating effects of almost a year of enforced closures, combined with an 80% drop in sales since the pandemic began, has decimated the hotels’ revenues.”
It added: “With an ongoing national lockdown that still has no definite end date along with ongoing overheads we’ve simply been left with nowhere else to turn.”
RBH said it will be contacting previous guests and those who had booked weddings and events with Bespoke Hotels advising them that compensation for existing bookings that were made with the previous operator will need to be managed directly with Bespoke Hotels.
Steven Foster, divisional director for RBH, said: “We have moved swiftly to re-employ the general managers to ensure the hotels are ready to re-open as soon as we’re allowed to do so.”
