Guests at one of the leading hotels in Newcastle will be taking a step further into the 21st century as their bedside Gideon’s Bible are being replaced by an electronic version of the text.
All of the bibles at the Hotel Indigo have been replaced with a Kindle e-reader with a pre-loaded copy of the bible. The hotel is claiming that they are the first in the UK to offer this service.
Guests of other religious denominations are permitted to download a copy of any other religious text up to the value of £5.
Other fiction books can also be purchased with the costs added to guests’ bills.
The new scheme has been adopted on a trial basis and then a decision will be made about whether it will expand to any or all of the 44 Indigo hotels around the world.
The hotel’s general manager Adam Munday said that the idea for the e-readers in the rooms was inspired by Newcastle’s literary heritage. The hotel is located near the largest independent library outside London, the Literary and Philosophical Society.
“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,” he said. “We wanted to reflect this literary history in a very contemporary way, so 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.”