Z Hotels chooses Liverpool for first venue outside London

Founded in 2011, Z Hotels is aimed at the so-called 'urbanite' guest with the current properties in Soho and Victoria designed to combine the value of budget hotels with the style of boutique operators and the design features of more luxury concepts.

The opening of a 92-bedroom hotel within a converted office block in the Merseyside city will be the first time the group has taken the brand outside of the capital.

However former Thistle Hotels chief operating officer Bev King, who founded the firm, told BigHospitality he would eventually like to operate 10-15 properties under the Z Hotels brand.

"We have just bought another building in Glasgow and we are currently working on another site in London but there is no rush. 

"There is no quick fix to building a hotel; it takes a couple of years before you find a site, get planning consent, buy the site and put the scheme together. The next site will be Glasgow and then hopefully two more in London during the course of the next year," he revealed.

Z Hotels​

The budget hotel market in the UK continues to grow from strength to strength led by Travelodge's return to the acquisition trail​ as well as Whitbread's expansion of Premier Inn and reported consideration of a new budget brand.

However King said Z Hotels was not planning a similar aggressive strategy and would instead focus on the quality of its city centre comfort offering.

"One of the key things which we think we do slightly differently to other brands is we don't compromise on quality. When you fly certain airlines and you step off the plane you say to yourself 'that was really awful but the ticket was cheap so it is not a big deal," he claimed.

Although a night in the Z Hotels property in Liverpool will start from £40 plus VAT, each room will include a luxury hand-made mattress from Devon, a high-end frosted glass shower and a TV with free access to a number of subscription channels showing movies and sport.

All Z Hotels also feature an all-day Z Café selling breakfast, afternoon tea and sharing plates including mezze and charcuterie. 

Liverpool​

Z Hotels is not the only hotel operator to look North West and to Liverpool - the city has seen a boom in bedroom stock within the last two years. Most recently Accor announced it was choosing the iconic former Lewis's department store in the city for the UK launch of its Adagio aparthotel brand.​

"We tried to build a hotel in Liverpool before with other investors and it never came off," said King. "Once we started looking at Z Hotels which was much more affordable, one of the natural places for us to look was Liverpool because we had all the background and we knew how much it had changed as a city in a relatively short period of time."

Liverpool also benefited from offering a tax relief scheme - the Business Premises Renovation Allowance (BRPA) - which gives tax incentives to investors who convert or refurb empty business properties. Z Hotels' expansion will be focused on cities with similar regeneration schemes because converted office blocks make better candidates for the brand as opposed to former hotels with large bedrooms. 

"It is quite a cool city and they have a proactive local government which is keen to establish Liverpool as a destination," King concluded.