Scotland’s Gleneagles Offers Subscription Model for 1st Expansion in 9 Decades
Skift Take
It's hard to look at Ennismore's chic new Gleneagles Townhouse, which puts equal weight on its members club as its hotel, without drawing a connection to how many travel brands have been testing the subscription model.
Early Check-In
Editor’s Note: Skift Senior Hospitality Editor Sean O’Neill brings readers exclusive reporting and insights into hotel deals and development, and how those trends are making an impact across the travel industry.When the Gleneagles Townhouse opens in Edinburgh shortly, it will combine a 33-guestroom luxury hotel with a membership club that woos locals.
The project — managed and owned by development firm Ennismore — touches on a few themes bubbling up in the hotel sector:
leveraging brands in new ways;using membership as a subscription model;balancing the ratio of locals to out-of-town guests;updating the members club concept for today's generation.The project is a spinoff of a storied brand.
The Townhouse project in the Scottish capital is the first expansion in its nine-decade history of Gleneagles. The golf resort in Perthshire has long been known regionally as a "playground of the gods" because of its glamorous clientele.Around 2015, Diageo sold the Gleneagles hotel to entrepreneur Sharan Pasricha and his Ennismore firm for a rumored $170 million (£150 million). Late last year, Accor became a two-thirds owner of Ennismore.Ennismore has been refreshin
