Canadian hotel management company sets sights on UK market

Canadian hotel management company Kingsbridge Management has revealed plans to enter the UK market in the new year.

President and chief executive, Suzanne Gatrell, who is British born, told The Caterer the company is in discussions with several independent hotels in the UK and is hoping to have signed its first property in the next three months.

She said: "I think it's a really powerful market in the world and I want my company to be part of that."

With a target of six hotels by 2024, she and her team are looking at independent hotels with fewer than 100 bedrooms, particularly in resort areas and smaller towns in the south of England such as Devon, Cornwall, Sussex, Hampshire and Oxford, as well as in Scotland and Ireland.

Kingsbridge Management was founded by Gatrell four years ago and operates three hotels in Canada, including one leasehold. Gatrell said the company would also consider leaseholds in the UK as well as managing properties on behalf of investors.

She added: "It's really important to me that we keep the independence of a hotel but that we provide the corporate support. We keep the integrity of what an owner has created.

"We're also international and that is a really unique thing in the independent hotel world, to have the presence in North America that we have and to be able to leverage both… I have a lot of contacts over there that will bring business to the UK in the tourism sector as well as vice versa. There's a win-win for whoever partners with us."