It looks like being a busy year for the airport budget hotel sector, with several brands opening properties at major UK hubs in early 2008.
Yotel led the way with its innovative capsule concept at Gatwick airport in summer 2007, and followed up with a Heathrow T4 property at the end of the year (see online news December 10, 2007), but it’s the more traditional budget brands which are launching in or around UK airports in the next few months:
- Travelodge has just opened its T5 property ahead of the terminal’s inauguration in March – the hotel is located by Junction 14 of the M25, just to the west of the airport, and has 295 rooms. The T5 property is the fifth Travelodge to be located within four miles of the airport.
- Premier Inn is due to open a Manchester airport hotel on February 11. Located less than a mile from the airport’s two terminals, the hotel has 195 rooms, a restaurant and meeting facilities.
- Easyhotel will open two London airport hotels this spring – the Easyhotel Luton, and the Easyhotel London Heathrow (situated around one and a half miles from Terminals 1, 2 and 3). Both properties will be run under a franchise agreement with the Eclipse Hotels Group.
- Newcomer Purple Hotels is opening a Glasgow airport property on January 20. Described as “cool, functional and inexpensive”, the brand features “supersize” walk-in showers, wifi internet access, and prices starting from around £60. Purple Hotels also opened a “Stansted” property at the end of last year (although note that the hotel is actually 12 miles from the airport), and has around a dozen properties opening across the UK in the next month.
- A little further ahead, Accor’s budget Etap and Ibis brands are launching at Birmingham airport mid-2008. The hotels will join Accor’s four-star Novotel brand, which already has a property located opposite the airport’s Terminal 1.
For more information visit travelodge.co.uk, premierinn.co.uk, easyhotel.com, purplehotels.co.uk, accorhotels.com.
Report by Mark Caswell
