Gatwick Diamond Business, a business community association in Gatwick, London, says thanks to Copthorne Effingham Park Hotel for their efforts to care for Afghan refugees for over two years, and welcomes the hotel’s coming reopening to the public in January 2024.
Copthorne
Effingham Park
Gears Up
To Reopen Doors
As Support For
Afghan Refugees
Comes To
An End
Under the UK Government’s Afghan Resettlement Programme, Copthorne Hotel Effingham Park in Gatwick, London has been temporarily housing Afghanistan refugees who fled to the UK due to the Taliban uprising in August 2021. The hotel has been helping the refugees settle into life in the UK.
As the programme comes to an end with almost all families found permanent homes, the hotel is gearing up to welcoming back tourists and businesses. Hotel Manager Mr Torsten Puck shares more on the hotel’s humanitarian journey, culminating in its re-introduction to the Gatwick business community as it prepares to reopen its doors on 8 January 2024.
Copthorne Effingham Park’s Millennium Suite was recently selected for a Members Meeting of the Gatwick Diamond Business (GDB), a business community association around and beyond the manor royal district reaching from London to Brighton.
Mr Raj Singh, Cluster General of Copthorne Effingham Park, Copthorne Gatwick Hotel and Copthorne Hotel Manchester who introduced the re-opening of the Hotel to 125 present businesses in a short but concise speech at the beginning of the event.
The Copthorne Hotel Effingham Park had not been trading publicly since the pandemic starting in 2020. There was a short re-opening time in between lockdowns but the hotel soon entered a government agreement, by providing legally required quarantine to travellers entering the United Kingdom from Red List Countries*.
As other hotels continued to operate to the general public after the ease of lockdowns, Copthorne Hotel Effingham Park remained under government acquisition to house refugees.
The cohort accommodated at the hotel had assisted the allied freedom forces in Afghanistan during an anti-terrorist operation and were removed before extremist organisations could seize control of the country after the scheduled retreat.
The UK Home Office, local authorities, and the hotel team have worked since to great efforts in order to integrate the traumatised people to the way of live in the UK. The Programme is now coming to an end as nearly all families have been found a permanent home, releasing the hotel from its humanitarian mission.
With the GDB Members Meeting, as one of the first corporate events in the re-decorated Millennium Conference Centre, the largest event hall between London and Brighton, we have been given the opportunity to present our abilities not only to hold large events but to succeed in customer service excellence.
*Red list countries are a list of destinations defined by the UK government as particularly high-risk for new and emerging strains of coronavirus.
