Despite losing a joint bid to become European City of Culture in 2008, the cultural renaissance of Newcastle and Gateshead has meant a boost for short break tourism, with new hotels proliferating on both sides of the Tyne and beyond.
Though often viewed as a single entity, Newcastle and Gateshead are actually two quite distinct communities. Historically, it has been Newcastle that has prospered better, its rich industrial heritage best expressed in the elegant sweep of Grey Street - a glorious piece of Georgian urban architecture often described as "the best street" in England.
Across the Tyne, the shipbuilding industry that largely fuelled this prosperity has all but faded to oblivion. But in recent years, there has been a dramatic attempt to reverse this decline, plain to see in the transformation of the Gateshead Quayside.
The architectural icon which has linked Newcastle and Gateshead together, most significantly in their (failed) joint bid to become European Capital of Culture in 2008, is the "winking eye" of Wilkinson Eyre's Millennium Bridge. Soaring above the bridge is the stunning Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, a transformed grain silo that has won as many plaudits for its bold industrial architecture as its ever changing collection of exhibits. Next door sits the futuristic shell of Foster & Partners' Sage Centre - a centre for musical education and performance.
But perhaps the most potent and enduring symbol of Gateshead's renaissance will prove not to be a building or a bridge, but the imposing figure of Antony Gormley's Angel of the North. Rather than staring across the river at their potential rivals, as the other icons of Gateshead's regeneration do, Gormley's sculpture greets visitors approaching by road from the South with open arms.
Inevitably, this cultural and economic regeneration has led to the creation of new hotels - not just on the Quayside, where a Malmaison foreshadowed the area's renaissance, when it opened in 1997, since joined by a new Hilton. Grey Street itself has seen the launch of Newcastle's first truly central boutique hotel whilst in Gateshead the Team Valley Trading Estate, one of the largest in the UK, saw the opening of a Tulip Inn in 2004. Further afield, North East entrepreneur Tom Maxfield has invested in Seaham Hall, a stunning luxury hotel and spa located just down the road from a mining town blighted by the pit closures of the late Eighties.
Such hotel development is symbolic of Newcastle's wider transformation, shifting its focus from traditional manufacturing industries to the service, software and technology sectors. Tourism too has seen a boost as new cultural and entertainment facilities have attracted increased numbers of short-break / weekend visitors.
This has been reflected in the performance of the hotel sector. TRI Hospitality Consulting, who monitor nine, branded three- and four-star hotels in the city, have seen four years of consecutive increases in both revPAR and room rate, with the 12 months to May 2006 showing a 6.9% in room rate (to £67.69), and a 4.7% rise in revPAR (to £50.02), compared with the same period last year.1
But according to Deloitte, branded supply structure in the city is is heavily weighted toward the mid-market, leaving 'clear potential' for more branded hotels to enter the budget sector2, as the launches of a 130-bedroom Express by Holiday Inn and an 81-bedroom extension to the Travelodge in 2005 suggest.
1. TRI Hospitality Consulting HotStats Market Report - Newcastle 2006
2. Deloitte HotelBenchmarkª Survey 2005
