I think you have to ask why so many clubs don't have hotels if it is such a great idea.

Conference facilities will not be open 365 days a year. Hotels will not be full 365 days a year.

Hotels will be for conference attendees and match day fans.

People doing business in Leeds will stay at one of the numerous hotels in leeds, they won't stay in Beeston.

If we were situated in an attractive city centre location there might be more commercial sense in it but even great location like Chelsea failed to make Chelsea village a financial success.

Bates is using the hotel scenario to channel money into a venture he has always been involved in - construction.

My belief is that the construction companies performing the work will be rewarding bates handsomely for that privilege.

IMHO - nothing, in principle. I have no idea if what Bates is doing is good or bad, but if he's made the right decisions it will be good in the long term. A club that has strong revenue streams from other than ticket sales is a stronger club.

However. The reason I have had an issue is there needs to be a balance, if the owner charges "Premiership prices" he needs to show the people he expects to pay those prices that he is also trying hard to deliver football on the pitch of an equivalent quality.

I concluded after Jan 2011 that he wasn't. I have to admit that since NW took over as manager I am starting to wonder if I was wrong - maybe more of our problems were due to the manager Grayson and less due to the the owner than I had assumed - but I'll never know for sure, and unfortunately KB has a "style" that makes it hard to be sure.

Jonty, as I said I'm unsure hotels would work at ER. I was really referring to the other stuff people haven't given him credit for. I understand you are a very against Bates and I accept that. Do you accept he has done anything to improve the club?

2020, I agree. With basically the same squad we have gone from shipping goals to be hard to breakdown. I accept we have also not scored as many. The players now fight for each other and it makes you think what would we have achieved with NW in charge for the full season with this set of players.

Cas, I struggle to find anything positive that Bates has done for Leeds to be honest, but was focussing on the hotel issue here.

My fear is we are left with huge debt that takes many years to repay and that the hotels will actually contribute anything towards paying back the debt their building created.

At the moment we put up with our situation due to hope for the future.

Imagine a situation where we're in the lower leagues and have no hope as we're stuck with unserviceable debt. We got out of jail once but we didn't get very far, would we get out if jail again?

Cas, I don't think anyone disagrees with other revenue streams being the right thing to do.
Spending millions on a hotel that could be spent on the ground itself including bars and restaurants etc. seems illogical.
The majority of ER is looking old and tired. Surely updating the N S & W stands, getting some higher quality players and getting the ticket prices right attracting more fans who would use the other facilities, would be a better way of spending 70 or 80 million.

A hotel in Beeston isn't going to attract masses of guests, (no offence to the local residents).

I also think investing money marketing in the far east, in particular China could reap rewards. SU have an interest in a club out there. Surely that could work, and Bates could do his construction work out there too.

I agree Go, the next investment in the ground surely needs to be in the West and North stands. I wasn't relating this article to just Hotels which Jonty seems to rant on about. I was trying to discuss the things already built.

With SU they have had problems because they gave players rediculous wages and now struggle. As I understand it they are selling all the none core assets and cutting back on there plan for world dominance.

Cas, where am I ranting about hotels?

Out of town hotels do work if the customer base has enough on site facilities to cater for their needs. ER has fantastic motorway links and is a stones throw from the city centre. Add to that the on site parking and the freedom from the city centre loop system and you have enough reason to choose whether you want to be tied down to a busy city centre or have the luxury of being directly on a motorway junction.

Bywater, yeah but Beeston!
Onsite parking? On old demolition sites and non secure.

When I travel on business, I hate being out of town. When I have settled in I like to look around town, have a wander. But Beeston! Come on! Again apologies to local residents. I live in Reading close to the Madejski which has an hotel. Apart from a reasonably pleasant surrounding business park where you can take a walk, there is nothing there. I wouldn't stay there or at the nearby Hilton which is built on the old sewage works, and overlooks the new one.
Bad enough living a mile or so away!

Gbg, exactly!

So hilton have a hotel near madejski, premier inn have a hotel near ER.

Does this indicate that they are wrongly located?

Don't get me wrong, this scares the #### out of me, but are we really being objective?

i imagine the hotel would be of the premier inn type model with bates owning the site and leasing the management of the hotel to the hotel company as most hotels are not owned by the hotel group,sofitel,novotel,etc

i agree bywater,i dont want to stay in city centre due to parking and close to motorways is handy but the flip side is would you want to stay in beeston?

Whilst I wouldn't like to stay at the Madejski Millemium Hotel or The Hilton Hotel a couple of hundred yards away for the reasons I stated, I would rather stay at one of those than a Hotel in Beeston.
I only use Premier Inns / Lodges for what I know is going to be an overnight stay, where I get in late and leave early the next day. If I am staying longer I prefer to stay in a real hotel.