LONDON-BASED hotel group Glh has unveiled a new brand of four-star hotels that does away with extra, unnecessary amenities.
Glh, a subsidiary of Singapore-listed GuocoLeisure Group, will open the first Every brand hotel, Every Piccadilly, in November. It will be followed by openings in Hyde Park, Leicester Square and Bloomsbury.
Mike DeNoma, chief executive of Glh, said: “The four-star full-feature hotel product is a dinosaur for many cities around the world. We estimate half of all four-star hotels outside gateway cities have too many restaurants and barely used meeting facilities.
“The four-star sector continues to bury its long neck in the sand, in the face of changing customer needs. Every is our direct response to owners and developers burdened with legacy buildings, who are keen for a new four-star option that responds to the changing market”.
The Every brand was conceptualised through research, which showed four-star hotels beyond gateway cities had meeting and event spaces running at occupancies as low as 30 per cent even while room occupancies were double that.
Every therefore focuses on a four-star bedroom product to maximise yield to owners of new-builds and potential conversion properties. Like all other Glh property, Every hotels will come with fast and free Wi-Fi for guests throughout the hotel.
Ian Gamse, director at Otus & Co, specialist hospitality finance and strategy advisors, said: “The big old four-star hotels were designed to meet a demand that scarcely exists outside gateways cities. However much customers say that they like hotels with lots of restaurants, ballrooms, meeting spaces, spas, swimming pools and whatever – they hardly use those facilities. It’s so much wasted space. Property owners know this and are exasperated.
“So there’s clearly room for a brand that offers bedrooms with the same upmarket comfort and quality, but without needing the excessive investment and overheads that accompany extensive non-rooms facilities. It’s good for the customer, the hotel owner and the brand identity. And that’s the gap that we see Every filling.”
