Hilton beats rivals to take Caledonian

Hilton has agreed to buy the Caledonian hotel in Edinburgh from Queens Moat Houses for £44.2m. The sale of the 249-bedroom hotel is expected to be confirmed at the end of March.

The purchase, revealed by Hilton at its annual results meeting last week, was made against competition from several other hotel groups, including Sol Meli , Four Seasons and the Raffles group.

Hilton also confirmed that it intends to call all its hotels Hilton, scrapping the widely criticised Hilton National name and relabelling all its Stakis hotels.

The group's hotels will now be distinguished from one another simply by either four-star or five-star status.

David Michels, chief executive of Hilton International, said: "When the names were changed 14 years ago it was a mistake, and we don't think that calling all the hotels ‘Hilton' will damage us. If you are going to Park Lane, you would expect a Hilton five-star, but if you are going to Bradford, you would expect a Hilton four-star."

Hilton's hotels worldwide increased pre-tax profit by £83m to £264m in the last calendar year, an increase fuelled by the £77.9m contribution from Stakis, the Scottish hotel group it bought in March.

Hilton's revenue per available room was up to nearly £47 from just under £45 last year.

Turnover in Hilton as a whole was down from £4.7b to £4.3b, but this was mainly due to the sale of Hilton's Coral betting shops by Ladbrokes.

by David Harris