Virgin Hotels Edinburgh is an incredible hotel that truly embodies the spirit of both the Virgin brand and the quirks and traits of Edinburgh’s beautiful Old Town – a place where people can come together to have fun, relax and enjoy all that this wonderful city has to offer.

The team has done a wonderful job transforming a historic building and preserving the heritage, while giving it a modern flare and using incredible design. The result is just beautiful!

It’s been great to mark the final phase of the Virgin Hotels Edinburgh launch – all of the hotel’s 222 Chambers and Grand Chamber Suites are now open alongside fantastic restaurants.

We were treated to an exclusive musical performance from Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo piper, Louise Marshall, who played a selection of traditional Scottish songs on the hotel’s roof terrace against the impressive backdrop of Edinburgh Castle.

My grandparents were from Edinburgh and my wife Joan is also Scottish, so the country has always held a special place in my heart. I’m so thrilled to have not one, but two Virgin Hotels in Scotland (we are also opening one in Glasgow this year!)

I also spent some time with a group of Scottish Virgin StartUp founders who told me all about their new businesses and popped down to visit the Virgin Money team – more on both of those later.

We then headed down to the Royal Mile and saw this huge tartan box with a button on it with the words YES! (in the style of the phones you will find in Virgin Hotels chambers – if you want something, you just hit the YES! button). When the button was pressed, a piper and a group of talented Scottish dancers jumped out and started performing, with the crowd cheering them on. The atmosphere was wonderful – thank you for coming out in the rain, Edinburgh! The team at Virgin Red then gave out cards, surprising and delighting the crowd with with prizes including everything from a luxury four-night staycation at Virgin Hotels Edinburgh to flights to locations all around the world. It was great to see people’s reactions.

I love seeing all our Virgin companies working together for the benefit of our customers. Virgin Red is the red thread running through the Virgin family, bringing together so many of our Virgin companies and other partners to build a rewards club that revolves around our customers. It’s so easy to earn Virgin Points on stuff you’d normally buy, and then you can save them up and use them on fantastic rewards such as our beautiful new Virgin Hotel in Edinburgh.