New purplehotel Sheffield appoints General Manager

The Real Hotel Company is pleased to announce Carl Butterworth as the General Manager of the purplehotel Sheffield, which will open at the beginning of November.

With over 12 years of hospitality experience, Carl has been charged with successfully launching what will be the UK's eleventh purplehotel, as well as raising awareness of this fast growing, premium budget brand across all key market.

Carl joins from the purplehotel Doncaster where he has been working as General Manager since the hotel opened in March last year. Carl is looking forward to taking on this new and exciting challenge of looking after the third generation of purplehotels, the purplehotel Sheffield. Having been with The Real Hotel Company for over three years Carl has a good understanding of how the company works.

Development Director of the purplehotel Sheffield, Tim Wheeldon said: "We are delighted to have someone as experienced as Carl leading the team at Sheffield. Carl has gained vast experience in hotel development and management having opened and managed the purplehotel Doncaster.

When not at his desk Carl can be found travelling round the world with his partner to watch the latest Eurovision song competition. To date Carl has attended concerts in Riga (2003), Istanbul (2004), Athens (2006) and this year's Eurovision song contest in Belgrade.

purplehotels is a new "no frills chic" brand from the Real Hotel Company aiming to offer guests a lot of what they want and nothing they don't need.

The brand describes itself as being cool, functional and inexpensive. There are currently 10 purplehotels located in Baldock, Birmingham Star City, Cambridge, Braintree, Derby, Doncaster, Glasgow, Peterborough, Shrewsbury and Tewkesbury.

The Real Hotel Company calls on mini critics to create new kids menu Eleven mini critics from Stourbridge came down to the Quality Hotel Walsall to sample some tasting dishes for the new kids menu at The Real Hotel Company. The children gave their expert opinion on a variety of dishes including starters, main courses and deserts. Amy Edwards was chosen as the winner of the front menu cover competition which will be used through out the 41 Real Hotel Company properties including their new "no frills chic" brand purplehotels.

Andrea Gubbins, General Manager for the purplehotel Birmingham Star City said: "it has been great getting the kids involved. We want our kids menu to be healthy and have some treats as well; after all when kids stay with us they are usually on holiday. It's a question of getting the balance right and these taster sessions have given us a lot of good comments and ideas to work with. Headmaster Paul Bravo should be proud of these kids - they know a lot about food and what it means to eat healthily. Some of the organic options scored highly but they all rated chocolate chip cookie, vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce."

The Real Hotel Company will be launching their new kids menu in the autumn in time for October half term breaks.