HOTEL BRANDING BY DAVID CHURCHILL


Over 6,500 UK hotel rooms last year were rebranded under a different name, double the number that took on a new identity in 2012


segment – with 50 per cent of rooms set to come on stream this year also in the lower ranking/price categories. “While current activity lies mainly in the budget, boutique and luxury ends of the market, the three-star sector has been squeezed in the middle and failed to reinvent itself sufficiently well to attract investor inter- est,” says HVS director Tim Smith.


PASTURES NEW Even Whitbread, Britain’s biggest hotel brand operator with Premier Inn, has been forced to change: in September it is opening the first of a new sub-brand, called Hub by Premier Inn, in London’s St Martin’s Lane. Hub offers smaller rooms and lower prices, and


hi-tech


features (such as pre-selecting room temperature and light levels via smart- phone) aimed at appealing to the young traveller looking for a budget room with some style. Whitbread is planning to open some 1,700 Hub rooms over the next two years, with London and Edin- burgh the first two cities targeted – latest sites signed up include a 66-room prop- erty in St Swithin’s Lane in the City, and a 300-room Hub in Shoreditch. Marriott is targeting this lifestyle/ budget market with its Moxy brand; and also crowding into this emerging segment are new operators with contemporary


BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM BBT JULY/AUGUST 2014 49


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