London’s luxury hotel market is set to take off over the next six months, as the £300 million Corinthia Hotel London opens its doors to guests in April, and a host of other top hotels are either opening for the first time or re-opening following reburfishment, according to City A.M.
The Corinthia, part of International Hotel Investments and situated on Whitehall Place, is reportedly in its finishing stages, and will join other new hotels including Hotel Verta in Battersea, which boasts its own heliport. Meanwhile, it is reported the Savoy on the Strand re-opened last month after a £220 million refurbishment that took a number of years, and the Four Seasons on Park Lane has had a £70 million makeover. All are expected to be taking guests within the first half of the next year, according to the publication.
Among the Corinthia’s offering will be 294 rooms including 45 suites as well as 12 private apartments, an Italian and a British restaurant, a grand ballroom and a four-floor spa. Guests will pay from £400 a night for a room, and between £2,500 to £15,000 a night for a suite, according to the report.
“Our standard rooms are 45 sq metres, the largest rooms in their class in London. When the Metropole opened in 1885 it had 500 rooms. Our hotel will have 294 rooms. So you can see we are offering our guests more space even though land costs much more,” Alfred Pisani, the Maltese businessman who is chairman of IHI, said in an interview with the news service.
And while the rates may sound steep (and indeed unaffordable) to some, Pisani thinks the buoyant London market can afford it.
“This year and in 2009 rates and occupancy levels have been quite staggering,” he reportedly said, adding that mid-market hotels were hit harder by the crisis than their top-end and budget counterparts.
His comments were backed up by a survey from Deloitte, which reportedly found that average room rates in the capital had increased by 15.6 per cent over the previous three months.
“London is a great city,” said Pisani in the interview.
“It is still the financial centre of the world. It has people from all over the globe living here. And its cultural attractions have a strong pull.”
