The Hot Scots Power 40: Russell Imrie, Queensferry Hotels
Ranking: 35
Russell Imrie - Snapshot
Russell Imrie is managing director of Queensferry Hotels, which owns and operates two four-star Best Western Plus hotels in Edinburgh and Dunfermline, the Bruntsfield and Keavil House. He is a well-established figure in the industry, and a champion of Scottish tourism. Russell is president of Best Western GB and president and board member of Interchange and Consort Hotels. He won a Catey for Best Independent Marketing Campaign at Keavil House, where he was general manager, in 1991.
Russell Imrie - Career guide
Russell Imrie is well-known as an experienced hotelier and non-executive director with expertise in marketing and customer service.
He started his career in 1979 with an HND in catering and hotelkeeping before becoming deputy manager of Bruntsfield Hotel in 1982 and general manager of the Bruntsfield and Keavil House from 1985-1999. He became managing director of Queensferry Hotels, which owns the two properties, in 2000.
In early 2013, both properties celebrated their success in the Best Western Plus annual awards where the Bruntsfield was the overall national Hotel of the Year winner (medium: 31-70 rooms), and Keavil House was the Hotel of the Year runner-up (large (over 70 rooms).
Russell consolidated his marketing expertise with an MSc in marketing in 1999 (Edinburgh Napier University Business School), and has put it to good use in many fields including as a committee member and vice-chair of BHA Scotland since 1994 and steering group member of the Scottish Tourism Alliance since 2011. He is also a board member of Marketing Edinburgh.
He was a member of the STA Tourism Leadership Group which formulated the Tourism Scotland 2020 strategy, and he chairs the sub-group which is developing a new strategy for quality management and customer feedback.
The primary role of the STA is to enable the successful delivery of the Tourism 2020 national strategy objectives and vision. The vision for 2020 and beyond is "To make Scotland a destination of first choice for a high quality, value for money and memorable customer experience, delivered by skilled and passionate people".
Russell Imrie - What we think
Russell works hard to keep his hotels, and Scotland, on the map. He remains focussed, and optimistic.
"The hotel industry in Scotland has the potential to benefit massively from future tourism," he told Caterer. "The recently finalised Tourism Scotland 2020 strategy sets a clear path. If hotels embrace this strategy and dovetail it to their own, then by 2020 Scotland will be a "destination of first choice" and the industry will have grown to between £5.5bn and £6.5bn in value."
The industry needs people like Russell to keep shouting this from the rooftops.
Best Western awards quality and longevity in annual awards 2012 >>
