One of the hotels in Newcastle has changed copies of the traditional Gideon’s Bible for an electronic version of the text.
The 148 bedrooms at the Hotel Indigo in Newcastle will have a Kindle e-reader that has been pre-loaded with a copy of the Bible. The hotel says it is the first in Britain to provide such a service.
Guests can also download a copy of any other religious text during their stay at the hotel, to the value of £5 or below. Fiction books can also be bought, with the cost of these added to the guests’ bills.
The Kindle e-readers were introduced on a trial basis; until a decision is made to retain the scheme or possible roll it out to more of the chain’s 44 hotels throughout the world.
Adam Munday, the hotel’s general manager, said: “In the 18th century, Newcastle was one of the largest print centres in Britain and we’re in Grainger Town, close to the Literary and Philosophical Society.
“We wanted to reflect this literary history in a very contemporary way, so we are offering guests the use of cutting-edge Kindles pre-loaded with The Bible, instead of the more traditional hardcopy Gideon’s Bible that they would expect to find in a hotel.”