The hotel will have a community open day and a “soft opening” on December 20, Wests Entertainment Group chief executive Rod Laing saying there would be a competition for club members to win that first night’s stay.

He said the next night would likely be for selected business and community leaders, before the hotel officially opens up to public stays from December 22.

Mr Laing said the soft opening would allow any bugs to be ironed out before the official opening.

After years of planning and months of construction, “it’s got to the exciting stage now where we can see daylight and we know we’re getting close”, he said.

Mr Laing said one particularly local touch to the new hotel would be the far-from-generic artwork.

Piallamore-based photographer Andrew Pearson’s landscapes from the New England region will be in every room.

The one completed room has a snow scene from the Nundle area, and there will be five or six other shots used.

“They’ll look outstanding … someone from out of town wouldn’t know that gee, it snows just up the road from here,” Mr Laing said.

Every room will also carry the coffee-table book Mr Pearson is set to launch early next year, a collection of New England landscapes titled Under a Big Sky.

Mr Pearson said it was “good to see other businesses as passionate about the region as I am” and investing in images from here.

“I think it’s one of the most amazing regions in Australia,” he said.

“There are photography meccas like Greenland, European countries, inland Australia – but for me, the place that has impressed me by far the most was the first time I drove into the Tamworth area, down the Peel Valley and saw the hills … I’ve never been inspired like that, and it’s literally the reason I started in professional photography.”

Mr Laing said the hotel would have an overall earthy theme, including carpets that resembled bark or riverbeds, for example.