Pentahotels puts focus on UK as it secures first London site

By Emma Eversham

- Last updated on GMT

Pentahotels UK expansion plans

Related tags Hotel Uk

The managing director of German hotel chain Pentahotels says the UK is an 'important market' for the expansion of the brand with more than 30 new locations currently under scrutiny. 

The company, whose sixth UK hotel opened in Ipswich last week, has just secured its first site in London with another being considered and managing director Alastair Thomann said it would not stop there. 

"The UK is an important market for us and we’re looking to add quite a few more in the not too distant future," he said. "At the moment our big focus is on London, but there are still quite a few interesting regional hubs we're looking at."

Thomann said the UK currently provided value for money for hotel owners and operators, especially those willing to look at 'secondary and tertiary' locations. 

"We're real estate investors and so far we've really focused on where can we get a greater return on our investment. There are 35 locations of high interest for us and there will be more coming along. It's a good time to buy." 

Food and beverage boom

Thomann said the UK also provided its most successful market for food and beverage. He said the brand's stance of operating its whole F&B function from a central bar and reception area had proved popular with guests and locals with this part of the business contributing approximately 39 per cent of the business's revenue across the global estate. 

"We've found that the living room-type atmosphere we've created by offering everything from the bar-reception 24/7 has led to a high capture rate, especially in the UK. F&B has improved in all the hotels we've taken over, but nowhere as much as in the UK. I don't know why, but it seems to work." 

Gamer's paradise

The introduction of Pentahotels' gamer-centric hotel rooms, equipped with pinball machines and Playstations has also proved successful for the company, Thomann said. 

A small number of the gamer rooms were added to individual following the success of a games area in Pentahotel Birmingham and had proved so popular will now form part of the brand strategy going forward with many more gamer rooms being added to existing and new hotels. 

"We stumbled across the idea purely by chance," said Thomann. "It’s amazing the impact it has, particularly with our corporate guests who I noticed were booking out these rooms early to secure them.

"I’ve never seen it anywhere before and we never took it too seriously, but now we are building it into our business plan and have won a couple of big corporate accounts because of it." 

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