A 60-bed Premier Inn hotel for Aviemore has been approved by members of the Cairngorms National Park Authority Planning Committee.
Parent company Whitbread said it would invest £6.5m in the project, which would create 25 full-time jobs.
Whitbread has been granted permission to build the hotel on the site of a former filling station on Aviemore's Grampian Road, with the principle of a hotel in this location having already been established with existing consents in place.
The development was unanimously welcomed by Planning Committee members with the site having been regarded as an eyesore at the entrance to Aviemore for some years.
Planning Committee Convener, Eleanor Mackintosh said, 'I am pleased that the vacant filling station - a very unattractive entrance to Aviemore - will soon become a thing of the past. The new design for the hotel is also an improvement on the previous consent and I am sure that it will prove good for the economy of the village.'
