Based on market research that showed a gap between bedroom and event space occupancy, the new brand is targeted at ‘quality-conscious business professionals and savvy city explorers’, and aims to offer four-star bedroom quality with limited non-bedroom facilities.
Ian Gamse, director at OTUS & Co, a specialist hospitality finance and strategy advisor firm, said:“It should be obvious that supply needs to match demand. But 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 up-market 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.”
Current portfolio conversion
Thistle Piccadilly will be the first hotel to be converted into every Piccadilly, with a November re-opening. Thistle Hyde Park, Leicester Square and Bloomsbury will then also become every hotels.
glh aims to open another 50 every hotels globally by 2020, and plans to do that through further own-brand hotel conversions and management contract with other property owners, targeting existing hotels and new-builds.
For prospective clients, the firm advertises flexible contracts fair to both parties, four-star quality with better investment and overhead efficiencies (low investment cost and high yield), a technology-enabled experience delivered through its value centre management model and data-driven decision making.
Changing four-star market
Three and four-star hotels have suffered from the rise of the budget segment – prompted by the economic crisis but still going from strength to strength – and glh hopes every will provide the sector with an answer to changing demand.
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.”