The accounts of Balbirnie House Hotel in Fife do not make for happy reading. Revenue more than halved and losses due to Covid approach £1 million.
But, despite the financial pain, the hotel’s managing director looks forward to 2022 with optimism.
When the pandemic hit, Nicholas Russell had to tell a bride her wedding the next day could not go ahead.
Still closed in June that year, he predicted the impact of the pandemic would end up costing £1m. He was almost exactly right.
The newly filed accounts show a loss of £179,000 in the year to April 2020, and a deficit of £817,000 to April 2021 – a total of £996,000.
But the key point for Mr Russell is the losses will only be £1m and not a penny more.
‘Extreme’ innovation at Balbirnie
He says containing losses to this level has been a huge achievement by his management team who had to resort to “extreme levels of innovation”.
This included opening a takeaway service, external dining, becoming cashless and using virtual reality technology to attract wedding bookings.
In the current financial year he is cautiously predicting a return to profit.
He said: “Having taken the £1m hit, we have somehow subsequently managed thereafter.
“It has been a truly epic challenge on the hospitality rollercoaster, but we have held our financial ground.
“Broadly speaking we are at break-even since then, despite all ongoing trading restrictions.
“The directors are optimistic financial results to the end of April 2022 may show a return to profit.
“This is despite trading with very severe restrictions especially through the first quarter of the financial year.”
Record wedding bookings
In December, Mr Russell said the hospitality industry had been “thrown under a bus” by the Scottish Government’s guidance to postpone Christmas parties.
At the time he estimated the financial impact for Balbirnie at around £35,000.
But his confidence has been restored by a record number of wedding bookings in January. The number of weddings on the books stands at 184 for the venue.
He said 2022 will be the busiest year in the county house hotel’s history, a turnaround he says is a “miracle”.
He said: “It’s been two years through a financial grinder and now we’re getting firmly financially back on track back to where we were before the pandemic.
“Fingers and toes crossed that there are no further lockdowns.
“Many hospitality operators were clinging on before the pandemic, never mind the implications of Brexit.
“Many have very sadly not survived. Others, especially in remote locations and unable to recruit EU nationals, have closed as they cannot find staff locally.
“We are thankful we are fully staffed and ready for our busiest year in history.”
