A LEADING hotelier has warned of the dangers to some of Scotland’s beauty spots as a result of the Outlander effect. Ken McCulloch, founder of the renowned One Devonshire Gardens and Malmaison and Dakota hotels, believes the phenomenon has got “a bit out of hand”.

“It’s like kilts on ice,” he told the Sunday National. “It’s not my idea of why people would want to come to Scotland. It’s a bit like jumping on the bandwagon and doesn’t give a proper view of the country.”

McCulloch said he had visited one of the beauty spots that had grown popular because of the Outlander book and TV series, only to be met by crowds of “Jacobites dressed in big kilts”.

“There seemed to be hundreds of them and I thought ‘they are going to kill the place’. It’s a place of tranquillity, it’s beautiful but that is what happens when you start to superimpose an idea onto something.”

The National: Hotel guru Ken McCullochHotel guru Ken McCulloch

He said he thought those involved in trying to capitalise on Outlander had the right intentions but it “hadn’t really been thought through”.

“Like all these things they start quite small then they grow and when they grow they get a bit dangerous and start developing into something you thought it would not be,” he said.

McCulloch added that it was not a tactic he would use to attract people to his own hotels.

“I wouldn’t go near it,” he said. “I like things you can control and I like them being controlled and I don’t feel what I saw was necessarily being controlled. I don’t think that is very healthy but these things happen because people have to create revenue and I understand that. I do think you have to be doing things but if you start doing it at a certain level it starts to take over.”

As part of a group called Connoisseurs Scotland, which represented the top hotels in the country, McCulloch went on fact-finding missions around the world to spread the word about what Scotland could offer. In doing so, he said he learned a lot about what people were looking for from a visit to Scotland.

“The first thing that struck me was their enthusiasm for Scotland and they are looking for the real thing,” he said. “They want authenticity. They don’t want gimmicks like tartan or haggis. I think what visitors get from Scotland is what Scotland is and that is the people.

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‘‘They are wonderful, they have a sense of humour and they are enthusiastic and are not trying to rip somebody off. I have been in various other countries where it would break your heart as everybody is on the make.”

He added: “I do think Scotland is magical. If you look about you it’s just amazing and it’s not shortbread and tartan and all that stuff.

“We like to have the very best of Scotland in the hotels. You do the simple thing brilliantly and there is nothing better.”

Speaking to The National ahead of the Moffat Lecture in Glasgow this week, where he will be in conversation with Professor John Lennon, McCulloch also criticised pension fund operators who buy up hotels then think only of the bottom line.

“These guys come in, buy hotels, put a brand on them and the only thing that is important is the bottom line,” he said. “Well you don’t get anywhere without the bottom line and by all means buy something – but grow it and grow the people with you so that everybody benefits. But that is not how these chaps think.

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“Of course the bottom line is important because if you didn’t care about it you wouldn’t exist but there are ways of making the bottom line that should not take over everything else and it is more than possible to do it – I am the living proof of that,” McCulloch said.

“I see some wonderful properties in Scotland that should not be the way they are and I think it’s a shame. I went into one recently and it was shocking.”

At the Moffat Lecture at Glasgow Caledonian University on Tuesday, McCulloch will tell students they should go into the hotel industry for the right reason – because they enjoy it.

Then, he believes, building up a business has to be on the foundations of sincerity and consistency.

“It has to be good all the time,” he said “It’s no use if someone comes and has a wonderful time then has an awful time when they come back – and that happens. Consistency is one of the main things – and a sense of humour.”

He believes what makes a good hotel in the 21st century was what had always made hotels good. “You can be very modern but still have old-fashioned values and that’s me,” he said.