Mark Spanton named general manager at Dakota Newcastle

Mark Spanton has been appointed general manager at the upcoming Dakota Newcastle hotel ahead of its opening in 2025.

He has been part of the Dakota team since 2020 when he joined as deputy general manager at the group’s Manchester site.

In 2022 he was promoted to general manager at its Leeds hotel, which is recommended as a place to stay in the 2024 Michelin Guide Great Britain and Ireland.

Spanton was this week named as one of 12 recipients of the Master Innholders Scholarship, which will allow him to take part in the General Managers Programme at Cornell University in the US.

The 118-room Dakota Newcastle will be the hotel group’s sixth UK site and is expected to create 120 jobs when it opens in St Ann’s Wharf in spring 2025.

Spanton said: “It’s a privilege to be awarded the Master Innholders Scholarship, and the learnings from Cornell’s General Managers Programme will prove invaluable for this opening.”

Dakota Hotels is a partnership between former Hotelier of the Year Ken McCulloch and the Leeds-based Evans Property Group.

It opened its first ’boutique luxury’ site in Motherwell, Scotland in 2006 and has since expanded into Glasgow, Manchester and Leeds.