This month, Liverpool gets the UK’s second Aloft, Tune lays down plans for £200million UK ex-pansion and IHG sets its sights on Russia for Holiday Inn Express
Aloft Liverpool opens
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide has opened its second Aloft property in the UK, with the
Aloft Liverpool hotel.
Located inside Liverpool city centre’s 110-year-old Royal Insurance Building, Aloft Liverpool fea-tures 116 rooms, the brand’s signature W XYZ bar and five Tactic meeting rooms with AV facilities and free Wifi.
Recreational facilities include Re:chargeSM fitness centre, and Re:fuel by AloftSM, a one-stop, 24-hour grab-and-go food and beverage area.
The opening of Aloft Liverpool is the culmination of an £18million investment project to regenerate and preserve Liverpool's historic Grade II listed Royal Insurance Building.
Aloft Liverpool is the fourth Aloft hotel in Europe and second in the UK, with five more slated to open across Europe in the next three years.
Tune Hotels plans £200million UK expansion
Tune Hotels - part of the Tune Group, the private investment group of Tony Fernandes, Founder of low-cost airline AirAsia, has unveiled plans to open up to 25 UK properties by 2020.
The announcement came as company opened the doors to its sixth UK property in Newcastle last month.
When we started the business, we polled 1,000 low cost airline passengers on what was important to them when staying in a $30 a night hotel,” said Tune Hotels, Group Chief
Mark Lankester.
“Their responses shaped our five core principles and also highlighted that people only want to pay for what they use, rather than for all those non-essential items that come as part and parcel of the typical hotel room price. The Tune Hotels’ select-service concept was born and today we have wel-comed over seven million guests to our hotels in nine countries across the world.”
London was Tune Hotels’ first expansion outside Asia in 2010. Today, the chain boasts five hotels in Westminster, Kings Cross, Paddington, and Liverpool Street, plus Edinburgh, and sees its new 104-room property open in Newcastle.
A further hotel is due to open in Canary Wharf in February 2015,
and work has just started in Liverpool, which will open in July next year.
“Our aim is to have a further 25 hotels across the UK in the next five years representing a significant investment of over £200million,” continues Lankester. “
We will be targeting the major business cities across the UK such as London, Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds, as well as looking at key university cities where our concept has proved very popular.”
IHG commences Holiday Inn Express roll-out across Russia and Georgia
InterContinental Hotels Group is rolling-out the Holiday Inn Express brand into Russia and Georgia.
Holiday Inn Express Voronezh – Kirova is due to open shortly. The planned opening comes just a few months after IHG introduced its Hotel Indigo brand to Russia, with the opening of Hotel Indigo St Petersburg – Tchaikovskogo.
There are plans to develop a number of Holiday Inn Express hotels across the region by 2019 fol-lowing a franchise deal signed with Regional Hotel Chain.
The agreement is a significant step towards IHG’s ambition to be market leader in Russia, the CIS and Georgia, with 100 hotels open or in the development pipeline by 2020.
Launched in 1991, the Holiday Inn Express brand opens hotels at a rate of two-per-week on average across the world and is part of the Holiday Inn portfolio of brands, which is the largest global hotel brand, with the largest global pipeline.
There are currently 220 Holiday Inn Express hotels open in Europe and 41 in the development pipe-line.
Article by
Mike Fletcher