Bath hotel the Lansdown Grove is to remain closed after lockdown following its parent group entering administration.
The four-star, 55-room venue, pictured, on Lansdown Road was part of the Country Living Hotel group, whose overall owner the Specialist Leisure Group has ceased trading due to the impact of Covid-19.
It could now be sold as the administrators start to sell the group’s assets to pay creditors before winding up the business.
The group, which owned a number of UK, Europe and worldwide tourism and travel-related businesses spanning hotels, travel agents, river cruises, and holiday firms, entered administration on May 22.
Sam Woodward and Colin Dempster of accountancy group EY’s restructuring team have been appointed joint administrators.
The Lansdown Grove, which is partly housed in an 18th-century Grade-II listed building, along with the St George In Harrogate, are the only two hotels making up the Country Living Group.
The brand was launched two years ago as a spin-off from Specialist Leisure’s Coast & Country Hotels division and followed an extensive refurbishment of the Lansdown Grove in partnership with Country Living magazine.
Specialist Leisure owns a further 42 hotels – 31 of them operating under its Bay Hotels brand and the remainder in the Coast & Country Hotels business.
The Wigan-headquartered group also owns Shearings, the coach holiday brand which has been in business for 117 years, National Holidays (trading as Caledonian Travel), UK Breakaways and Wallace Arnold Travel.
The group had 64,000 bookings and employed 2,460 staff – some 2,207 of them were furloughed at the time of administration and have now been made redundant. Around 70 staff are being kept on to help the administrators sell the assets and wind down the business.
All tours, holidays and hotel breaks booked by customers have been cancelled and will not be rescheduled. The administrators said the “vast majority” of customers were expected to have financial protection from one of the travel groups such as ABTA or through their credit or debit card issuer.
Joint administrator Sam Woodward said: “The group has been significantly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic as all tours, trips and events have been cancelled and the hotels closed to the public, leading to a significant cash shortfall.
“The directors of the group have been in discussions with a number of parties, seeking a going concern buyer for the business. Unfortunately, despite interest in the group as a whole and in parts, no viable transaction structure was able to be agreed and, as a result, the group was placed into administration.
“Our immediate priority is to advise and support those employees and customers that have been impacted by the group’s insolvency.
“We are making every effort to contact all customers, who have had their bookings cancelled as a result of the administrations or Covid-19, with information to assist them in making a claim.”
