Gleneagles Hotel is to invest £18 million in a major improvement programme to prepare for hosting the Ryder Cup in 2014.

Its improvement programme will include the refurbishment of rooms, the creation of a new spa, a restaurant and other leisure facilities, and also the development of parts of the hotel grounds.

The decision to invest followed the abandonment of plans for a joint venture with the owners of Highlans Spring, the al-Tajir family of Dubai, which intended to develop a site at Blackford to the west of the grounds. The planned £100m Gleneagles West development would have increased the grounds from 850 to 1450 acres. 

The new investment programme is planned to take place over two years and is aiming to consolidate Gleneagles’s position as a leading European resort. It also underlines the hotel’s commitment to hosting the prestigious Ryder Cup event.

Peter Lederer commented: “The absolute focus for us is to be the best hotel in Europe and we want to make sure that we are that.”

The hotel boss, who is also the current chairman of national tourist agency VisitScotland, added: “I was over at the Ryder Cup in Ireland and saw what a success they made of that and that has underlined our commitment to hosting the event here in 2014.”

The Ryder Cup coming to Gleneagles is bringing the event back home: the first golf match between Great Britain and America was held there in 1921 with the commemorative medals on that occasion being handed out by the then Glasgow Herald, sister newspaper to the Sunday Herald.

Peter Lederer said that the G8 summit and other events such as the 1992 Nato summit held at the hotel, as well as the Northern Ireland summit being held at the Fairmont hotel at St Andrews, Fife last week, showed that Scotland has established itself as an important host country for international gatherings.

The hotel’s focus on the developments is backed by parent company Diageo, a sponsor of golf events around the world. The Gleneagles hotel is a sizeable business in its own right with turnover of about £40m a year. Lederer added that it is the biggest employer in the local area and makes a major contribution to the economy of Perthshire and Scotland as a whole.