There are many manors and castles in England, most of which have been abandoned. Of the remaining ones, a small number are still in private hands - they are nobles whose families' financial conditions are still good. However, even so, the vast majority of them need to be open to the public and charge admission fees to subsidize their huge renovation costs.
As for most of the manors that are still in relatively good condition, they have been entrusted to various funds for protecting ancient buildings. Even so, these funds are often unable to afford the repair costs of all castles and manors. Many people see that those British castles sold at extremely low prices are all sold by these funds in order to reduce financial pressure.
Although these castles and manors are relatively cheap, buyers still need to bear much higher renovation costs.
Barron's idea is to have some of the more well-known and most tourist-worthy castle estates managed by his Devonshire Cultural Tourism Group, not limited to those estates owned by their family.
In this way, these castles and manors can be packaged and promoted uniformly. In addition to collecting tickets from tourists, the Cavendish Hotel Group can also open castle hotels or manor hotels of various styles.
In addition, rental services such as booking castle weddings and photo shoots can also be divided into various levels for customers to choose from.
Of course, he just has this idea now. As for whether he is willing to join in, it depends on the ideas of the Rutland family.
"Our Devonshire Tourism Group will carry out a series of promotions for its castles and manors, including music festivals and marathon events. In addition, many reality shows will be filmed at its castles and manors. If Belvoir Castle is also included, relevant activities will be customized according to the characteristics of your manor."
It must be said that after hearing what Barron said, the Duchess of Rutland was indeed moved. She looked at Barron with her beautiful eyes and asked:
"So what kind of cooperation method is used?"
"This requires some discussion. You can still retain ownership of the castle manor, just like our current Chatsworth Manor and Callan Castle. It's just that the management rights of the entire manor will be handed over to the Cultural Tourism Group. As for whether to directly obtain the group's shares or cooperate with the group in a profit-sharing manner, both can be discussed."
"I need to discuss this with my family before making a decision, Your Highness."
The matter was of great importance. Although Emma Manners was tempted by Barron's proposal to cooperate, she still couldn't make a decision directly.
"That's no problem. If you want to cooperate, you can discuss this matter directly with the CEO of our Cultural Tourism Group."
At this point, the conversation between the two this year is almost over.
At this time, the Duchess of Rutland stood up and stretched, fully showing her graceful figure.
"The layout here is really beautiful, Your Highness, can you show me around?"
"It is a great pleasure, ma'am."
…
"This bed is really soft..."
"You'd better lie on it so you can experience it better, ma'am."
"You are so thoughtful, Your Highness."
But in the end, both Barron and the Duchess of Rutland were very happy.
Especially for the Duchess of Rutland, the visit to this hotel room will surely be very helpful for her to run the estate in the future.
Through the last conversation between His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and Barron, and the news he later received from the Duke of Westminster, Barron finally decided to join the House of Lords and become a member of it.
Of course, this will not take up too much of his time. After all, he can choose topics that interest him and participate in the meetings of the House of Lords.
By mid-December, the first two seasons of "Downton Abbey" were finally completed and entered post-production.
During this process, Sinclair Group had been negotiating with SEM Group, but their overall valuation of SEM Group did not satisfy Barron, and the negotiations were at a stalemate.
This kind of negotiation will definitely require one party to make more compromises in the end. Although Barron is willing to let Sinclair Group join SEM Group and become its shareholder in order to utilize Sinclair Group's content resources to help them fill SDTV's broadcast time, the prerequisite is that in this investment, Sinclair Group will not make SEM Group appear too "cheap."
Therefore, the negotiations between the two sides have been going on intermittently, but so far, there has been no substantial progress.
Everything will have to wait until "Downton Abbey" is officially broadcast. This TV series produced by Summit Media with great effort is still very important. For the SEM Group, the success of "Downton Abbey" will not only enable them to get better conditions in their cooperation with the Sinclair Group.
Downton Abbey also plays a very important role in whether SDTV can become a hit.
According to Julian, the producer of "Downton Abbey", the actors' performances this time are excellent and they will present a wonderful drama to the audience.
Before the show was aired, SEM Group also started promoting and warming up the series.
At this time, London welcomed its first snowfall since the beginning of winter.
This was also the first snow Barron saw in this time and space.
When the snow started falling at noon, Barron had just come out of the Lloyds Building where DS Capital was located. When he saw snowflakes floating in the sky, he also received a call from Bonnie.
On the phone, Bonnie said to him with a joyful voice:
"Honey, did you see? It's snowing."
"Yes, baby, London is beautiful right now."
"I originally thought that it would not snow until after Christmas. This year is a real surprise. By the way, I just watched the first two edited episodes of Downton Abbey. It was amazing."
"That's really good news."
"In other news, our variety show The Traitors has been nominated for the British Academy Film Awards and will compete for the Best Variety Show Award in February next year."
As one of the most popular variety shows this year, "The Traitors" can be said to be the most watched reality show in the UK. It is not too surprising that it received this nomination.
"It's a perfect day, baby, it seems like we should celebrate."
"I can leave work early today, and seeing how things are going, maybe we can build a snowman in the yard before dinner."
"Not a bad idea."
After hanging up the phone, Barron said to Frank:
"Stop at the intersection ahead. I'm going to buy a bouquet of flowers from the flower shop over there."
"Yes, Your Highness."