Five star treatment at Hamilton Park Races
First past the post
An historic Lanarkshire sporting venue has become one of only three Five Star racecourses in Scotland following a grading from Visitscotland.
Hamilton Park Racecourse, located on Bothwell Road in the South Lanarkshire town, was upgraded from Four Stars by the national tourism organisation’s Quality Assurance (QA) Scheme in recognition of its exceptional standards.
The QA Scheme is a benchmark for quality across the tourism industry and operates across accommodation, visitor attractions and food sectors.
The venue, which has been a racing site since 1926, has recently invested £250,000 in a luxury upgrade for its hospitality boxes, with luxury fixtures, fittings and interiors, new facilities and a revamp of the Owner and Trainer’s bar. This is following the impressive £800,000 refurbishment programme carried out last year.
Now racecourse continues its ambitious plans to offer visitors the best experience possible with work already underway to open a £10m hotel in the summer of 2019. Offering 118 rooms, this new investment will create 20 new jobs and generate an additional £5.9m in annual visitor expenditure.
The town of Hamilton has a rich history of horse racing with the first race taking place in 1782 at a site in Chatelherault, situated just outside the town. The current site has made a lot of history of its own, most notably when it became the first racecourse in Scotland to stage an evening meeting in 1947, something that is now common place throughout the industry.
Vivien Currie, Chief Executive of Hamilton Park Racecourse, said: “We’ve held four stars for over 10 years and have been working towards this goal for some time, so are very proud to have achieved that aim.”