Forte Hotels appoints marketing director

Forte Hotels has appointed Suki Kalirai as marketing director. He replaces Paul Neep who left at the start of the year to join whisky producer Glenmorangie.

Kalirai joins Forte from SeaPerfect, a seafood production and marketing company. He has previously worked at United Biscuits, Coca-Cola, Guinness and Unilever. In his new role he will sit on the board of Forte Hotels.

Neep held the role temporarily after being appointed in the wake of the takeover of Forte by Granada last year. He replaced Richard Carrick, who joined Forte just as Granada launched its protracted bid for Forte in 1995; Carrick returned to Airtours as soon as the bid was completed.

Forte Hotels is made up of International Hotels, which includes the Le Meridien chain; UK Hotels, which includes Post House and Heritage; and the London Hotels portfolio.

Granada yesterday (Tuesday) completed the next stage of its asset disposal programme with the sale of motorway service station business Welcome Break for more than 476m to Investcorp, the Bahrain-based investment group. It also sold the Westbury hotels in London and New York to property group Chelsfield for about 90m.