Over the last 3 decades and more, providing truly superb value has always been at the very heart of Balbirnie House.
We have always been completely driven by desiring to offer fully accessible pricing and affordability as a start point. (However if anyone wants to go for the champagne, same as other hotels, well of course we can do that as well!)
Many hospitality venues only have hugely expensive fixed price menus, and do not have the approachable pricing start points which we have at Balbirnie House.
This explains why in our entire span of marketing, you will never ever encounter the words 'just' or 'only' - as we have always thought that both of these are entirely subjective and totally dependent on anyone's ability to define discretionary spend.
We have of course all seen how over the last 3 years, there have been significant and unusually high inflationary pricing increases across the span of all food and beverage purchases. The entire hospitality sector has therefore needed to put prices up, there has simply been no choice.
In Q4 of 2023 state-of-the-art technology finally reached a point whereby Balbirnie House was successfully able to react to Decades of Inconsiderate Parking and introduce totally new systems across our entire parking portfolio, so as to finally be able to ensure that all parking areas on our privately-owned hotel land, are actually able to be fully and properly set aside for the use of our own hotel guests and visitors.
The new technology was a £100,000 investment for the future, including 12 new pre-reservable electric vehicle chargers, with capacity to deliver millions of miles of clean energy driving. In tandem with this, parking charges became applicable as well. Someone recently asked us, 'Why didn't you just put the hotel prices up, and continue to offer free parking?' We could have easily done that, but it would have done absolutely zero to resolve our many problems with inconsiderate parking.
During 2023 Balbirnie House took a quite incredible 201 wedding bookings. Special events are even more consistent than ever before, and we are catering for larger numbers as well. New technology has thankfully now resolved our parking challenges.
The purpose of this new blog post today, is to confirm that we will now deliver Park and Dine Dynamic Pricing, so as to always fully be able to ensure that we are delivering as much value as we can, when compared to other hotels and restaurants.
Whilst in context and albeit almost nominal (at eg £2 parking for a two hour afternoon tea visit), we are now going to action in-house industry comparisons on a monthly basis, ensuring that our affordability start points are always delivering absolutely superb value. Not only this, but we are also going to do this, in a way which factors in the fact of the £2 for the parking.
Dynamic Pricing is something which we have already focused on for years for our many wedding clients, in relation to accommodation. Our literature provides comparisons to prices for venues elsewhere, without of course naming other venues. We always wish to ensure we are offering truly wonderful value.
For the purposes of this blog, whilst dynamics and competitor price comparisons are always part of ongoing annual reviews, and we will continue to action across the span of all that we provide for, let's talk specifically today about The Modern Age 3 course menu, which we introduced at Balbirnie House in August 2023. This is a great hospitality start point.
We are absolutely delighted with all progress with this new offering, and our most recent 874 DishCult reviews are sitting with a truly wonderful 94.4% guest delight. Perhaps many of these fantastic reviews were delivered due to Executive Chef Kris Currie and Pastry Chef Neil Dunlop's new contemporary take on a Deep-Fried Mars Bar!
It is also absolutely wonderful to see Scotland and The Modern Age being highlighted on the global hospitality stage, literally this morning via Haute Grandeur global hotel awards. Quote 'Culinary Excellence Celebrated ... Something totally new for Scotland' 👍
Stating the obvious for 370,000 residents of Fife, £2 for four dining guests parking at Balbirnie House, is significantly less than the £54 it would currently cost for return train tickets to Edinburgh!!!
So if we are currently at £35 per person for the start point for a 3 course meal, what are our industry colleagues elsewhere (say within 30 mins drive) currently priced at, for a night out?
3 COURSE DINNER PRICING
Balbirnie House £35.00
Kirkcaldy (Fine Dining) £46.95
Perthshire (Fine Dining) £47.50
East Neuk Fife (Michelin Star) £80.00
St Andrews 5 Star £65.00
Worth also highlighting that other venues as per above, are also charging supplement charges for individual dishes within 3 course format as well. And we are not.
Appreciated of course, the above pricing does not include arrival drinks, or wines, or discretionary service charges, but the Balbirnie value-for-money start point is certainly made. During this cost-of-living crisis, we are offering value for money, which upon the above comparisons is totally self-evident.
Let's consider afternoon tea same calculation comparisons:
AFTERNOON TEA
Balbirnie House Traditional £23.50
Perthshire Country House £27.50
St Andrews Country House £29.50
St Andrews 5 Star £36.00
Perthshire 5 Star £59.00
Edinburgh Iconic £29.50 + Fife train £13.50 = £43.00
Edinburgh 5 Star £65.00 + Fife train £13.50 = £78.50 (loose leaf tea starts from £5 pp supplement)
Our current Balbirnie pricing, offers and overnight stays already provide superb value for money. Park and Dine Dynamic Pricing will now also be fully applied to afternoon tea and Private and Corporate special events, and ongoing dining start points, all inclusive of parking.
And talking of dining out, over recent months we have had so many requests to re-open The Balbirnie Bistro. We can however only look to do this, if our Orangery / Afternoon Tea/ The Grill @ The Orangery/ The Modern Age are all at full capacity first.
Menus and reservations all via: www.balbirnie.co.uk
Nicholas
MD Balbirnie House
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