Rezidor SAS has signed a breakthrough deal for its Park Inn brand in the UK and Ireland, taking its portfolio from five to 14 hotels.
The company has leased eight former Moat House hotels from Jefferson Hotels, and will spend £15m rebranding and refurbishing the properties over the next two years. The three-star hotels are in Cardiff, Birmingham, Nottingham, Telford, Lakeside, Bedford, Harlow and Northampton.
As part of the deal, Rezidor will also manage a property in Watford, Hertfordshire, under the Park Inn name. It already has two London Park Inns at Heathrow and Hyde Park. Martin Rinck, senior vice-president for Rezidor SAS, said: "We plan to have 50 properties in the region within the next five years through a mixture of leases and franchises."
Park Inn is pitched to compete with InterContinental's Holiday Inn and Hilton's Scandic brands.
* In a separate deal, LRG Acquisition has put 11 of the 73 Holiday Inn hotels it bought from InterContinental earlier this year back on the market for a rumoured 70m. This follows a review of the estate in which LRG identified the properties as non-core assets.