MONTH IN REVIEW
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REFURBISHMENT
£20m refurbished
Liverpool hotel
to reopen in
December
Seel Street Hotel, owned by
independent hotel groups Epic, is set
to complete a £20m refurbishment
and open to the public in early
December.
Work on the 128-room hotel,
developed by Elliot Group as part of its
wider transformation of Wolstenholme
Square, includes new ‘Super Luxe’
suites with outside terraces and
skyline vistas and new a residents’ bar
and gym.
Simon Beer, MD of Epic, said: “We
are thrilled to be able to give this first
look of our new Seel Street Hotel by
EPIC. We are very proud of what we
have envisioned for the property, and
we are confident our guests will fall
in love with it from the moment they
step inside.
“This is a game-changer in the city
and offers a high-end hotel experience
befitting of Liverpool’s status as a
world-class place to visit. It’s a first-
class hotel for a first-class city.”
The sale to a buyer with overseas
connections is further evidence
of rising international interest in
acquiring UK hotels largely thanks
to devaluation of the pound
Julian Troup of Colliers International
and Kit Abram of Knight Frank
December 2018
TECHNOLOGY
NH Hotels
launches
‘Fastpass’ online
service
NH Hotels has launched its new
‘Fastpass’ service which allows guests
to check-in, choose a room and check-
out all online.
The company claims it is the
first European urban hotel chain
to offer all three services at once.
The implementation process will
be delivered in two phases and by
2019 it will be available in 330 of the
group’s hotels.
NH Hotels said 48 hours before
arriving at the hotel the guest will
receive an e-mail to access online
check-in where the guest can provide
all his or her details up to noon on the
arrival date, so that on arriving at the
hotel all he or she has to do is pick up
the room key.
During the online check-in process,
the guest will benefit from the choose
your room service, which lets guests
consult all the available rooms and
choose the one best suited to their
tastes and needs according to their
own criteria such as facing, views,
bathroom and type of bed.
From 6:00pm on the day before
departure, guests can pay for any
expense incurred and complete online
check-out and leave the hotel without
having to go to reception.
According to the company’s
estimates, after the first year of
implementation of Fastpass, more than
12,000 people will have left the hotel
without having to check out at reception,
collectively saving 42,000 minutes.
Fastpass will be available through
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any device completely free of charge
for all guests. It will also be available
through the NH Hotel group app.
Isidoro Martínez de la Escalera,
chief marketing officer at NH Hotel
Group, said: “We are aware that
customers are becoming increasingly
independent thanks to technology,
and so we wanted to go further by
combining these three innovative
services to facilitate as much as
possible and constantly improve their
NH experience. We want guests go in
and out of our hotels as if they were at
home, and are able to choose the room
according to their preferences.”
HOTEL SALES
George Hotel in
Cumbria sold for
estimated £2.75m
The George Hotel in Penrith, Cumbria,
has been sold to Everbright Group off a
guide price of £2.75m.
The 35-bedroom hotel is located
in the centre of the Cumbrian market
town, only a short drive from the
northern Lake District, and the
groups handling the sale said it has a
“longstanding place in the history” of
the town.
Everbright said it was “delighted to
have purchased the George Hotel in
the heart of the community”, and staff
at the hotel added they were “[looking]
forward to welcoming all existing and
new customers alike”.
In a joint statement, Julian Troup of
Colliers International and Kit Abram of
Knight Frank said: “We are delighted
to have completed the sale of the
George Hotel to buyers who will
continue to maintain the character
and heritage of this attractive period
property. The sale to a buyer with
overseas connections is further
evidence of rising international interest
in acquiring UK hotels largely thanks
to devaluation of the pound.”
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