Orange finds a peach with luxury Remington Hotel
A city level of service and luxury in a regional location.
That’s the core driving principle for the Remington Hotel Orange, a new and sophisticated property that could usher in a major change to the Australian accommodation landscape.
The Remington Orange was born from the fact that corporate executives struggled to find top quality hotel beds when visiting regional centres, and Grant Gill, the Group Manager of the Remington Hotels Group, predicts it could launch an exciting new trend in regional accommodation around Australia.
“My driving force is to make the Remington brand one of the best hotel brands in Australia,” Mr Gill said.
The 82-room Orange hotel opened December 2020 in the regional city of 45,000 people that is three hours west of Sydney across the Blue Mountains.
Management calls the Remington Orange a new generation of hotel, conferencing and regional accommodation that offers sophistication, quality and a level of service and luxury rarely found outside the cities.
“We say that we’re a five-star hotel at a four-star price,” Mr Gill told Accom News, “and we are bigger than a boutique hotel. I think the model is right and that’s what guests are saying about the rooms and the finish.
“The service is so much more than what guests have been used to at regional properties.
“We’ve got the highest speed internet we can provide, the same speed as the Orange hospital. We’ve got 55-inch 4K TVs in every room and the latest casting technology which means guests can run all their Netflix and streaming services.
“I did all the consults. I met with the architects, did all the internal fit out. My consulting company did the interior design and all the bed selection, TV selection and wifi throughout.
“We use an Australian-made Sealy bed that is custom made to our specs and designed just for Remington. The beds have been rated as five-star so it’s a very comfortable property for guests. And we sell a heap of beds as a result. Guests can choose from seven configurations of room type.”
Mr Gill said Whitney’s Restaurant & Bar at the hotel was proving very popular and boasted an international standard chef who had worked at Hilton hotels all around the world.
There is also a top-class function and event centre for weddings, meetings and conferences, and Mr Gill said the state-of-the-art fitness centre was fitted with Technogym equipment, the “same that you get at the InterContinental.”
So why did the Remington group build such a luxurious hotel in a regional centre, that has just a fraction of the population of the capital cities?
“Orange is a marvellous regional hub with great infrastructure, and it has massive tourism support from Sydney and the ACT,” Mr Gill said.
“It’s also a growing wine region and is becoming well respected for that and for its amazing food.
“Then you have the fact that it’s a major medical and agricultural centre with hospitals and important farm businesses. It has a lot of the infrastructure that you see in a major metropolis.”
Mr Gill said the decision to build the hotel in Orange originated with Remington’s first hotel in Muswellbrook, in the heart of the coal mines of the Hunter Region, 240km north of Sydney.
“That was our apprenticeship model,” Mr Gill said.
“The owners and directors of the board are involved in different types of property development and one thing that kept coming up was that every time they stayed in a regional area, they couldn’t get a good bed.
“In just about any regional centre most of the accommodation was older style motels. That big city level of hotel service and luxury didn’t exist. A lot of the corporates visiting the mines were going out of town to find a good hotel. They’d go down to the Hunter Valley and stay at the Crowne Plaza or they’d drive up from Newcastle.
“We built the Remington Motor Inn to a budget eight years ago.
“It currently sits at number one in New South Wales and number two in Australia on the Gold List at Star Ratings Australia. That’s up against some of the big names in city hotels so it’s testament to the model and to what the guests say about us.
“Orange is making such a statement and it is a couple of steps up on Muswellbrook in terms of finish.”
Mr Gill expects regional centres to soon host more luxury properties.
“I think we probably picked the market a little earlier than some of the other brands,” he said. “I’m excited about what could happen and there are whispers of a couple more hotels in the not-too-distant future.
“I know the Quest guys are popping up hotels left right and centre, though it’s a different model, and there are a couple of Novotels starting to crop up.”
The Remington Orange opened during COVID but with pre-pandemic optimism.
“By month four we averaged 74 percent occupancy which was 50 to 60 percent above where we thought we would be,” Mr Gill said.
“Months five and six were consistent but the new lockdowns in Sydney have devastated us.
“The good thing is that they won’t last forever.”
Grantlee Kieza OAM has won three Queensland Media Awards, two Australian Sports Commission Awards and has been a finalist for the Walkley and News Awards and for the Harry Gordon Award for Australian sports journalist of the year. In 2019 he received the Medal of the Order of Australia for his writing. You can find more of his work in our AccomNews & Resort News print magazines.
He has written 22 acclaimed books, including bestsellers Hudson Fysh, The Kelly Hunters, Lawson, Banks, Macquarie, Banjo, Mrs Kelly, Monash, Sons of the Southern Cross and Bert Hinkler.
