Major refurbishment and upgrade work to a long established Tenby Hotel has been one of the first schemes in Wales to benefit from Objective One funding.
The £600,000 scheme to upgrade rooms, build a further 14 bedrooms and provide a new leisure suite at the town's Heywood Mount Hotel has been awarded a grant of over £200,000 from the Wales Tourist Board's allocation of £6.3 million of European Objective One funding
First phase of the work will see upgrading of the Heywood Lane hotel's existing bedrooms, the creation of a new bar and dining room as part of a total revamp of the ground floor and the development of a new leisure suite and swimming pool.
Proprietor Mr. Dennis Andrews, who has run the hotel for more than 20 years, explained that most of the bedrooms were converted to en-suite several years ago, but he now feels another leap in quality is needed if the local tourist trade is to attract visitors, particularly throughout the year.
"Quite simply, to attract people throughout the year, you have to provide them with top quality facilities," he said. "Gone are the days when people would go to an hotel and expect just to have a bedroom.
"The new leisure suite will be open to the general public via a membership scheme and it is hoped that these new facilities will enable us to entice more midweek, weekend and corporate trade, as well as providing facilities for local customers.
"This will also provide more employment for the area, as we will be able to stay open all year round.
"As you can imagine, it is a considerable investment and we would not have been able to undertake the scheme without the Objective One funding."
Mr. Andrews said that the first phase work was progressing well, and was expected to be open to the public within the next eight weeks.
The winter period will see the second phase of the scheme, to increase the hotel's bedrooms from the current total of 17 to 31, with a view to completion in May/June of next year.