Whitbread removes remaining Swallow hotels from market

The Swallow group of 13 hotels has been taken off the market by owners Whitbread because the four potential buyers were not offering enough money.

Whitbread has been trying to sell the hotels, which are predominantly in North-east England, for two-and-a-half years but said last week that the offers made had been "inappropriately low".

Peter Bech, operations director of Swallow, said the hotels could be up for sale again as soon as March 2003. "Now is not a good time to be selling a group of hotels, and Whitbread is not going to undersell such an asset," he said.

Swallow has just had its annual operating budget approved which, with the new appointment of a full-time sales and marketing director, will focus on attracting local corporate business.

Bech denied that the continuing uncertainty about Swallow's ownership had affected staff morale. He said all general managers were very motivated to increase the hotels' performance.

In 1999 Whitbread bought the 60-strong Swallow chain for £578m from Sunderland-based Vaux brewery, which closed in the same year. Since then, it has relaunched the majority of the chain as either Marriott hotels or Travel Inns.

The 13 hotels that were deemed unsuitable for renaming because of their location or size are in Stockton, Dundee, Glasgow, Newcastle, Gateshead, Chollerford, Carlisle, Preston, Durham, Rushyford, Harrogate, Ipswich and Old Harlow.