Best Western Dorchester hotel now independent Sleeping Bear

The 29 room Georgian-era hotel in High West Street, formerly known as the Best Western Wessex Royale Hotel, is now the Sleeping Bear Hotel.

Sleeping Bear Hotels managing director Tudor Hopkins, who lives in the New Forest, bought the hotel on October 11 from owners Hunt's Food Company.

The Sleeping Bear describes its approach to hotels as 'no hotel fluff, just the good stuff'.

Three members of staff have been made redundant as a result of the changes, which include scrapping the breakfast offering and creating a free tea and coffee station.

The bar and conference space have been retained and some twin beds have been replaced with super king size beds which are also detachable.

The Sleeping Bear has created a breakfast guide for guests featuring local businesses to encourage them to use local businesses and is in the process of putting together a guide to local restaurants for dinner.

The Sleeping Bear hotel in High West Street, Dorchester (Image: Supplied)

The hotel building has been a mainstay of Dorchester’s high street since the 18th century.  It was built in 1756 as a coaching inn.

Mr Hopkins said: “We’ve done a lot in a short space of time. If the business isn’t profitable something has to change.

Tudor Hopkins, managing director of Sleeping Bear Hotels (Image: Supplied) “I’m hoping the business will flourish and we want to do all we can to support local bars, cafes and restaurants.

“We want to to have a symbiotic relationship with local businesses.”

Mr Hopkins has been in the hotel industry since he was 19 and his extensive experience includes working for the high end Savoy group for six years.

He said: “I’ve always been interested in independent hotels, big hotels isn’t my comfort zone, I much prefer independent boutique hotels.

“I’ve spent a lot of time in five star hotels, I wanted to create something that’s still boutique and not costing £300 a night. There’s a lot of great hotels out there but you need a second mortgage to go and stay in them.”

One of the Sleeping Bear's superior rooms (Image: Supplied) The Sleeping Bear in Dorchester is the first in the firm's portfolio but Mr Hopkins says he would like to acquire 15 to 20 hotels across the UK .

“The concept of Sleeping Bear Hotels is to remove stuff you don’t need and keep the stuff you do and have a boutique up-scale offering in a downtown location," he says.

“I’ve made our prices 25 per cent lower so we’re comparable with Travelodges and Premier Inns but when you walk in here you can very much see that it’s very individual.

The hotel lobby area (Image: Supplied) “The number one selling room rate before was the room only rate.

“People’s buying behaviour has changed. You know that the hotel breakfast would be good but sometimes you can pay a lot for it.”