Hotel’s passionate lockdown plea hits headlines

Open letter reaches 1.2 million thanks to Scottish PR experts

A NEW SET of lockdown restrictions closing much of the hospitality industry across the Central Belt was met with confusion, hurt and anger from hotels, restaurants, bars, cafés and B&Bs across the country.

With £30,000 worth of cancellations just hours after the announcement, Ten Hill Place hotel (owned and operated by Surgeons Quarter) penned an emotive open letter to Scottish MSPs outlining the issues with the severe new rules, which would effectively result in the industry being brought to its knees within hours.

To help our client spread this urgent message, we quickly pulled together a press release outlining the main points of the letter and issued it to national, trade, local and broadcast press – resulting in an incredible 1,218,211 opportunities to see.

Other highlights included:

MSP Monica Lennon reading parts of the letter out at Parliament on 08 October
Coverage on the front page of The Scotsman
National features in Metro Scotland, Scottish Daily Mail, Scotsman, Sunday Post
Regional coverage in Edinburgh Evening News, Courier, Evening Telegraph, and P&J
Local features on Edinburgh Live, Edinburgh Reporter
Trade hits on Hotelier and Hospitality, and Hotel News Scotland
Digital and social coverage resulting in 765,000 opportunities to see
31 direct website clicks from our press release

Scott Mitchell, boss of Surgeons Quarter’s Ten Hill Place Hotel, slammed the Government’s lack of engagement with the sector, and called on MSPs to review and reassess the restrictions, which would cripple an already decimated industry.

The letter created an unmissable PR opportunity to spread the message far and wide, in the hopes that it would positively impact the severity and longevity of new restrictions. Our PR activity has helped put this letter in front of the eyes of almost 25% of the entire country’s population.

Surgeons Quarter owns and operates the hotel in Edinburgh’s Old Town, which earlier this year accommodated and fed frontline NHS workers for free for two months at the start of lockdown – at a cost of £100,000 to the charitable organisation.

This rapid, responsive PR activity helped position Ten Hill Place and Surgeons Quarter at the forefront of the national conversation around lockdown restrictions and their unrelenting impact on the hospitality industry.

You can read the press release and letter in full here https://www.holyroodpr.co.uk/hotel-pr-hotel-boss-calls-on-urgent-scottish-government-rethink-in-letter-to-msps/

Our heartfelt communication today to the Scottish Parliament. pic.twitter.com/WOn4Owfmp5

— Ten Hill Place Hotel (@TenHillPlace) October 8, 2020

We’ve worked with Surgeons Quarter in the past on quick thinking reactionary comment pieces and press releases, including a response to a tourist tax, which would hit the organisation with a loss of £40,000 (and its subsequent refusal!).

The power of PR, when timed and toned correctly, can help influence decision making and raise issues in the right way, putting it in front of high level decision makers.