MICHAEL Murray and his wife Marie bought over Dowans Hotel in Speyside because they wanted to start a family business for their daughters, Stephanie and Lauren who were struggling to find work in their chosen careers. They have now purchased a second premise in Archiestown which is due to open in 2019.

Name: Michael Murray

Age: 61

Position: Director

WHAT’S YOUR BUSINESS CALLED?

Shawfern Group

WHERE IS IT BASED?

Speyside

WHY DID YOU SET UP THE BUSINESS?

THE demand placed on our current hotel exceeds our ability to supply on many occasions. Refurbishment of the current hotel was completed last year. We got the current hotel for our daughters. I had taken early retirement and the girls were finishing degrees in 2011 and couldn’t get into their field of expertise. We decided we weren’t prepared for early retirement and wanted a project. Steph was working at the Hotel du Vin group and Lauren was working at the Hilton in Glasgow. They were working long hours for little money. We started out with a couple of coffee shops in Glasgow and it became a hotel. We did an assessment of 50-60 hotels and visited 10 to 15. Dowans stuck with us and we bought it in December 2012. We knew little of Speyside at the time, it is now better known in the UK than it was 10 years ago. Spending 25 years abroad we hadn’t explored Scotland in the recent past.

HOW IS IT DIFFERENT FROM COMPETING BUSINESSES?

WE are a strong driver of visitors in the whisky industry. We have a whisky bar which has been shortlisted for whisky bar of the year in the Scottish License trade awards. It is a family run, owned and operated business. On booking.com we took a business that had a rating of 7.2 out of 10 and it now has 9.5. We have developed something that people like and come back to. We also have a cultural awareness. We have lived in many parts of the world so have a good understanding of appreciating different cultures and responding to those.

WHAT IS YOUR TARGET MARKET?

THE market in Speyside is very vibrant – there’s a 12 mile radius of the Dowans Hotel and Archiestown. There are 56 single malt distilleries in Speyside which is more than half of the distilleries in Scotland.

There is also a lot of activity from industry in the Speyside region like biomass and windfarm technology.

Two types of tourist come here – general tourists from places like the US, Asia and Europe but also whisky-based tourism.

The way distilleries address tourists is radically different from a few years ago. The first type of tourist come to see the beautiful scenery like Edinburgh Castle and stuff like that.

There’s a lot to satisfy tourists – there’s activities like golf and fishing on the River Spey for salmon. There’s also a local market.

Dowans has been completed to a high standard – it’s a boutique style hotel with high quality bedrooms and modern twists like underfloor heating in bathrooms. The downstairs of Archiestown has to be different to Dowans so the local community and visitors have something else for evening entertainment.

We want people to go to Archiestown because of what it has to offer in its own right.

WHAT DO YOU ENJOY MOST ABOUT RUNNING THE BUSINESS?

WORKING with the family. It’s great that after working together all this time we still speak to each other! We shut the hotel at Christmas for five to six days and we all move in and spend quality family time together. It is fascinating to watch my two daughters mature and operate a business. They were a manager and employee in a corporation previously and now they are making decisions.

The girls and Marie are the forefront of the business. I look forward to the next part of the journey and I don’t believe it ends at the Archiestown acquisition.

WHERE DO YOU HOPE THE BUSINESS WILL BE IN 10 YEARS’ TIME?

SOLIDIFYING our position in the industry would be a nice benefit and reward for our hard work. We hope to be a larger organisation. We will probably stay in Scotland. We were originally looking for something to acquire in Spain but we didn’t believe that was right at the time.