Balbirnie House Hotel

INTERVIEW: Balbirnie House Hotel

Nicholas Russell

MD and owner of Balbirnie House

What is your property’s current biggest challenge & how do you manage this challenge in a highly competitive industry?

Having started as GM 30 years ago, I have personally been running Balbirnie House ever since. It is an incredible hotel to work with, as we never ever have two days the same. There are currently massive challenges across the span of the UK, in relation to recruitment and energy costs. For recruitment we are successfully remunerating above national benchmarks, and above national minimum wage levels, regardless of age. As a result, we are fully staffed and have a waitlist of 150 wishing to join the brigade, long may this continue. Early in 2022 we successfully capped our energy contracts, and also most thankfully locked in for a full five years, so whilst costs have certainly risen, at least we know where we are, and where we are going to be. Our company directors are resolutely committed to the future, our future special event diaries are looking truly magnificent, and we will always be striving to do our very best to ensure that Balbirnie House is always presented to her absolute best in history, and that our entire hotel brigade are fully equipped and completely motivated to deliver one very, very special day at a time.

What makes the hotel really special?

Our hotel brigade is very obviously the most important part of our working lives in and around Balbirnie House. We have 115 individuals in the team, and no matter what has ever happened before, we have to always take the opportunity to embrace each new day, as being absolutely unique, and endeavouring to deliver our absolute best-of-the-best of our Scotland hospitality. Balbirnie House as a project, is under continual review and permanent evolution. In 4 decades as a hotel, we have never closed for a refurbishment, we take one area and one project at a time, and keep going. We have in the region of 200 weddings taking place in 2022, and 2023 shows no sign of slowing down. Meeting prospective future new clients is always the most special part of my own working week. Couples can never be exactly sure when it happened. Or even when it started. But at some point in that initial journey of contemplation our clients find themselves in the right here and now, falling totally in love with Balbirnie House, and all that we do. And so, each wedding begins.

Best Wedding Hotel - Global level Best Country Hotel - Europe Best Destination Wedding Hotel - Europe, Best Function Venue Hotel - Europe Best Classic Hotel - Scotland

How do you prepare now to remain relevant and in-demand in future?

Balbirnie House is now defined as ‘Best Wedding Hotel’, global category via Haute Grandeur, for the third time. What a remarkable best-in-world hat-trick!!! It is in all contexts simply incredible, and surely something that none of us will ever see happen again, for any other hotel in the world, ever? I can assure you, that our entire brigade are so very honoured and it is so profoundly humbling for us to be on the receiving end of these amazing awards, and knowing that today is never a dress rehearsal for tomorrow, it drives one and all to keep doing our best.

How do you expect the association with Haute Grandeur will benefit your brand in the medium/long run?

We have seen incredible press and media coverage. And we have been literally lost for words to see Motions of Congratulations being delivered in Scotland’s Parliament. As awards news have eventually subsequently filtered into our literature, they have become an indelible part of what we are. It is global history, and it will now be there forever. It is also so incredibly romantic, the very notion of getting married in the only hotel ever to have received the best wedding hotel global hat-trick, what an amazing and beautiful way in which to start a marriage. It has been wonderful to have been asked to represent Scotland’s hospitality sector at the Haute Grandeur global awards. On two occasions our company directors have made annual trips to awards dinners in Dubai and Kuala Lumpur, with our entire wedding planning team, we felt it was incredibly important for those nearest to our clients in the planning processes, to be there to receive the awards on behalf of our entire brigade past and present. These are career-defining awards for one and all, and we will always treasure the many Haute Grandeur memories of a lifetime.