# The Lochside Lodge — Business Profile

## The Business

The Lochside Lodge is a 12-room independent hotel near Fort William in the West Highlands. It's been in the family for about 15 years. Ellen MacAllister bought it from her parents eight years ago and has been running it herself since. She lives on site.

The Lodge has a small bar and breakfast room and an outdoor hot tub. There's no spa, no treatment rooms, and no formal wellness offering.

## Guests

The guest mix is roughly:

- **Leisure couples and small groups** — hillwalkers, Munro baggers, cyclists, and people on driving holidays. The most common booking type, especially in shoulder season.
- **Wedding parties** — the Lodge hosts wedding-night stays and party accommodation through a referral partnership with Thistle & Loch Weddings. Typically 8–12 guests across 2–3 nights.
- **Guided walking groups** — small groups of 4–8 sent by Ridgeline Mountain Guides before or after multi-day routes.
- **Corporate contractors** — midweek bookings through Lochaber Corporate Travel; site managers and engineers working on infrastructure projects nearby. Less glamorous but reliable fill for quiet periods.

## Seasonality

Peak season runs May to September. October and March/April can be decent for walking groups. November to February is thin — some weekend bookings, Christmas and New Year solid, but January and February are the quietest months of the year. Off-season planning and maintenance happen then.

## Suppliers and Operations

Ellen runs the Lodge largely herself, with part-time staff in peak season. Key operational relationships:

- **Cleaning**: Lochaber Cleaning Services (Pauline Docherty) — daily changeovers, reliable, WhatsApp-coordinated
- **Linen**: Caledonian Linen Services (Inverness) — weekly Tuesday collection/delivery
- **Breakfast produce**: Heather Glen Bakery (bread), Strath Fionn Food Co (eggs, smoked salmon, seasonal veg)
- **Bar**: Highland Spirits Wholesale — fortnightly delivery, good range of local gins and whiskies
- **Trades**: Stuart Connelly (plumbing), Craig Paterson (electrical)
- **Accountant**: Janet Macpherson, Macpherson Accountants, Fort William

## Finances (Rough)

Margins are tight — hospitality always is. The Lodge is profitable but not expansively so. Any significant capital investment needs to earn its keep. Ellen doesn't have a large reserve to draw on; a project like a spa addition would require a loan.

## The Croft Building

In the grounds there's an old stone croft building, currently used for storage. This is a common feature of Highland properties. Landowners built dormer-style houses for crofters, which over time were modernised and became the primary dwellings — many have since been converted into hotels and guest houses, which is the origin of the Lodge itself. The original stone crofts remained on the land as outbuildings, typically used for animals or storage.

The Lodge's croft is stone-built and structurally sound. It's been used as a general store since Ellen's parents' time and isn't connected to mains services. Ellen has always assumed it could become something useful but never had a specific project in mind — until now.

## Positioning

Comfortable and friendly rather than luxury. Kirsty MacPhail at Dunavar House is the high-end neighbour — fewer rooms, higher nightly rate, more boutique. The Lodge sits a step below that in price but above a standard B&B. Guests come for the location, the welcome, and the breakfast as much as the rooms.

## What Sparked the Idea

Two things came together. Over the past couple of seasons Ellen has had a steady trickle of guests — mostly couples and wedding parties — asking whether the Lodge offers treatments or has any kind of spa facility. They weren't asking to extend their stay; bookings in the Highlands are typically fixed-length and booked well in advance. But it came up enough that she started to notice it as a gap.

Then at the West Highland Tourism Network event in March, she heard other operators talking about wellness as a differentiator — not just a nice-to-have but a reason guests choose one property over another at the same price point. A spa doesn't make people stay longer; it makes them pick you in the first place, and it gives you grounds to charge more.

## Goals

Ellen wants to grow revenue in two ways. First, make the Lodge more attractive to higher-spending guests — the kind who would choose Dunavar House today but might choose the Lodge if it had more to offer. Second, generate income from locals, particularly during the off-season when hotel occupancy is low. A spa or wellness facility could serve both: a draw for guests looking for a more complete stay, and a bookable amenity for people in the area who don't need a room.

## Ellen

Ellen is in her early 40s. She's practical, direct, and has good instincts for the business. She's not technical but she's comfortable with new tools — she adopted online booking platforms early, uses accounting software, and has been using AI routinely for over a year now. She'll reach for Claude or ChatGPT to draft emails, think through a decision, pull numbers out of a messy supplier quote, or get a second opinion on something before she commits to it — it's become part of how she works. She's time-poor during peak season and does most of her planning and project thinking in the winter months.

She has no staff who could take on a major project independently. If she takes on something big, she's the one managing it.
