Amaris Hospitality to boost five hotels with £21.7m refurbishment

Hotel investment and management group Amaris Hospitality has announced it will invest £21.7m into the transformation of properties in Edinburgh, Islington, Oxford, Bristol and Dublin.

The company will spend more than £6m on the refurbishment of 230 of the 373 bedrooms at the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel in London’s Islington, with the aim of bringing all accommodation up to four-star quality.

It will see Five Feet to Fitness rooms introduced to the hotel, which the company claimed to be a first for Europe. Featuring 11 different fitness and accessory options, the new concept offers guests the option of exercising in the privacy of their own room.

The Islington transformation project follows significant investment in the 2014 rebranding of the property from Jurys Inn to a DoubleTree by Hilton, when £13m was spent on the addition of 143 new bedrooms.

A further £2m will be spent on the Group’s DoubleTree by Hilton hotel at Edinburgh Airport, where all 150 bedrooms will be refurbished and a new food and beverage concept introduced. Amaris said the hotel will be the only four-star property at Edinburgh airport when works complete early next year.

Other work being undertaken includes the £500,000 renovation of 40 bedrooms at the Mercure Bristol Grand Hotel, and £2.5m being invested in the addition of 17 new bedrooms at the Mercure Oxford Eastgate Hotel.

Amaris Hospitality also recently completed a £10.5m extension to the Hilton Garden Inn hotel at Custom House Quay in Dublin, adding 85 new bedrooms to create a total of 324 rooms.

Peter Stack, chief executive of Amaris Hospitality, said the investment investment programme was a key part of the company’s “ambitious growth strategy to build a unique portfolio of high-performing, best-in-brand hotels”.

He added: “We are very excited to be the first hotel in the UK to embrace Five Steps to Fitness rooms, just one of the examples that illustrates our commitment to leading the way in industry innovation across our estate, ensuring our guests have access to best-in-class amenities.”

The investment programme is scheduled to be fully completed in the first quarter of 2020.