Prospects for hotel construction improve

The hotel construction sector is set for a fillip with Travelodge announcing plans to spend £3 billion building 300 more hotels and prospects for higher-end schemes and aparthotels improving in some regional cities.

Travelodge’s opened six hotels last year but Glenigan’s construction industry research found that the company has also been pushing through a programme of refurbishments. Travelodge directly awarded 18 contracts in the 12 months to February 2023, including a £1.2 million refurbishment of the Travelodge on Drury Lane in central London (Project ID: 23027212).

The majority of these schemes where a contract was awarded were valued below £1 million but Travelodge has other larger schemes in the pipeline. These include a £6 million hotel in Harwich (pictured) (Project ID: 18191132) and a £2 million scheme at Loughton in Essex (Project ID: 22205736).

Council partnerships

Travelodge also develops hotels with local authorities and has worked with more than 25 councils from Ashford to Stirling. More hotels are being developed through these alliances.

Travelodge hotels form part of a £30 million mixed development proposed by the London Borough of Wandsworth on York Road (Project ID: 23076351) and also a residential scheme planned in Lowestoft by Waveney District Council (Project ID: 23060662).

With sites already identified for the new programme, Travelodge has written to 220 local authorities across Britain proposing that the hotels form part of wider regeneration projects.

Travelodge’s chief property & development officer Steve Bennett said: “Our effective, innovative co-partnership development deals are spearheading regional economic growth.”

Provincial plans

Development of higher-end hotels has been muted recently, but the prospects for a number of provincial cities look stronger according to PwC’s most recent UK Hotels Forecast.

PwC believes that recent hotel development in some cities such as Liverpool and Manchester could create over-supply and stunt development, but prospects are better in Bath, Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, and Edinburgh.

In Bath, a redevelopment of the Parade Park Hotel is coming up after the property was sold according to Glenigan’s construction industry intelligence (Project ID: 21392490).

Hotel schemes coming up in Birmingham include the £16 million 156-bed Murdoch and Pitman on Corporation Street (Project ID: 17385850). Glenigan’s construction market research shows that tenders have been returned and work should start this summer.

Apartunities

The trend for aparthotels is emerging in a number of cities highlighted by PwC.

A number of regular hotel developments are in the pipeline in Belfast, including a £13 million redevelopment of the Dean Hotel in Belfast (Project ID: 23071310), and a number of aparthotel schemes are also coming through. These range from a conversion of 33 Wellington Place into a 118-bed aparthotel (Project ID: 22356004) to the £30 million Hamilton Dock Hotel on the city’s waterfront (Project ID: 19276724).

Hotel schemes in Edinburgh range from a £100 million redevelopment of the existing Ruby Hotel (Project ID: 22422828) to an aparthotel at Water Street (Project ID: 23030839).

In Cardiff, aparthotels in the pipeline include a £4.2 million scheme on Queen Street (Project ID: 21029730) and the £4.9 Market Chambers development on St Mary Street (Project ID: 22445789).

All these projects should help keep the construction industry busy in the near future, as the hotel sector continues its recovery from the pandemic.