Britannia Hotels

Britannia Hotels Limited

File:Britannia 1.jpg
Company type	Private
Industry	Hotels & Hospitality
Headquarters	Hale, Greater Manchester, England
Number of locations	49 hotels across the UK
Key people	Alex Langsam CEO Robert Ferrari CFO Eileen Downey
Products	Hotels and property development
Services	Conference room hire, banqueting functions, health club membership
Revenue	£55.448m (2011)
Operating income	£8.752m (2011)
Net income	£8.138m (2011)
Owner	A.Langsam Hawksford Trust Company Jersey Limited
Number of employees	1,393
Subsidiaries	Britannia Adelphi Hotel Ltd Birmingham International Hotel Ltd Ambassador Hotels (Bournemouth) Ltd Ambassador (East Cliff) Ltd Britannia Hotel Bolton Ltd Britannia Hotel Leeds Ltd Britannia Country House Hotel Ltd Britannia Hotel Edinburgh Ltd Britannia Hotel Wolverhampton Ltd
Website	www.britanniahotels.com

Britannia Hotels is a United Kingdom based hotel group with 49 hotels across the country. With circa 10,000 employees serving over 7 millions guests annually across its hotel and Pontins Holiday Park portfolio - it is the largest privately owned hotel chain in the UK. Britannia operates at the budget end of the market with hotels varying in price and star ratings.

Overview

Britannia Hotels was founded in 1976 with the purchase of the Britannia Country House Hotel in Didsbury, Manchester. Its Chief Executive, founder, and largest shareholder remains Alex Langsam. Langham is a non-domiciled taxpayer, registered as living in Austria for tax-purposes since 1999. His net personal worth was valued at £90 million in 2013 by The Sunday Times.

Its head office is based in the old town hall in Hale, Manchester. A large cluster of the company's hotels are located in and around Manchester. Britannia does not build hotels, preferring to buy, refurbish and up-date existing hotels, restoring original features where possible. In some cases Britannia has converted other properties into hotels.

Britannia Hotels do not all have a common theme or identity, each hotel being individual. Bedrooms have different furnishings in each hotel, although refurbished rooms are generally in similar styles.

Acquisitions

After its foundation in 1976 with the purchase of the Britannia Country House Hotel in Didsbury, Manchester, the Group went onto make the following key acqusitions:

• The second purchase in 1981 was a council owned derelict listed building in central Manchester. After spending an entire year developing the unit, it partially opened in May 1982 with 25 bedrooms on the top floor and a nightclub as Britannia Hotel Manchester. This once derelict unit is now a famous landmark and meeting place throughout Manchester with 5 floors and over 350 bedrooms.
• At the end of 1982 British Rail sold off its hotel division - British Transport Hotels. From this sale, Britannia bought the internationally famous Britannia Adelphi Hotel a superbly appointed hotel in the very heart of Liverpool.

The Britannia Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool

• In 1987 Britannia Hotels converted an unused building in Manchester that used to be the city's C&A department store - this became the Sachas Hotel.
• Later in the same year Bosworth Hall, a country house style hotel in Market Bosworth Warwickshire, was purchased. Bosworth Hall was in the process of being converted from a hospital/nursing home into a hotel and Britannia took over the development from the builders who went bankrupt. The conversion was to produce a 192-bedroom hotel set in twenty seven acres of beautifully landscaped gardens and parkland.
• 1988 saw the purchase and vast development of The International Hotel adjacent to Canary Wharf, in the Heart of London's Docklands. The hotel opened on 9 June 1992.
• A year later, Britannia took over a 187-bedroom hotel in Stockport. After an entire refurbishment the Britannia Stockport Hotel opened in 1993. In the summer of the same year the Group also purchased the Europa Hotel, a 211-bedroom hotel situated close to Gatwick Airport.
• In the following 10 years the Group went on to acquire a further 16 hotels, located across the UK, in key locations such as Birmingham, Aberdeen and Newcastle.
• November 2004 saw the acquisition of four Hotels from the Grand Leisure Group. The Grand Hotel in Scarborough, The Grand Hotel in Llandudno, The Grand Burstin Hotel in Folkestone and The Grand Metropole in Blackpool.
• In January 2011, the company bought North West holiday camp business Pontins out of administration in a £18.5m deal which safeguarded about 1,000 jobs. Following the acquisition Britannia had to deal with a series of complaints.

• In the 10 years from 2005 to 2015 the Group enjoyed its most rapid period of expansion acquiring 21 hotels - the most recent including The Palace Hotel in Buxton and The Basingstoke Country Hotel acquired from The Hotel Collection.

Events

• In March 1954, Roy Rogers, his wife Dale Evans and their horse, Trigger, stayed at Liverpool’s Britannia Adelphi Hotel following their successful appearance at the city’s Liverpool Empire Theatre. As the singing cowboy movie star lay in bed with influenza, he was paid a visit by his horse, who had made his way through the hotel and up to the room, to present his master with a get-well bouquet of flowers. Beforehand, Trigger had signed the hotel register with a pencil between his teeth and later appeared on an outside balcony, to the cheers and excitement of 4,000 fans.

• In the mid-1980s, Alex Langsam, owner of the Britannia Hotel Group, acquired the Grade II* listed London Road Fire Station in Manchester. Proposals have been made to redevelop it into a hotel and offices, however the plans have been delayed. In 2006 it was placed on English Heritage's register of "at risk" historical buildings. The city council has attempted to compulsorily purchase the building but on 29 November 2011, it was rejected.

• The lounge in the Britannia Adelphi Hotel was used in the 1981 series Brideshead Revisited as the interior of an ocean liner.

• In 2008 as part of the Capital of Culture celebrations, a musical based on the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool, written and directed by Phil Willmott, Once Upon A Time At The Adelphi ran at the Liverpool Playhouse from 30 June until 2 August.

• In early 2014 Michael Palin and Mark Addy were filmed within the magnificent Grand Scarbrough Hotel for scenes for the BBC drama Remember Me (TV series).

Awards/Nominations

• In 2011 Britannia won the category of 'Most Group-Friendly Hotel Chain or Group' in the Group Travel Awards. It was nominated again in 2014 and 2015.

• In 2013 Pontins was awarded the UKCSI Award for Most Improved Organisation at the 2013 UK Customer Satisfaction Awards. Alongside Butlins and Expedia, Pontins continued this success by improving their scores by more than one point in the 2015 UK Institute of Customer Service Survey.

• Contact Manchester listed the Britannia Manchester Hotel as no.1 on their list of hotels that "are the tops for quality and quantity of space at bargain prices".

Controversy

In 2005 and 2006 the Grand Hotel in Scarborough and the Adelphi were investigated by the BBC.

In 2007 the Britannia hotel in Stockport was listed on TripAdvisor as among Britain's dirtiest. Whilst others have been prosecuted, for example Coventry and the Britannia Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool.

In 2013 the chain was successfully prosecuted for putting guests and construction workers at risk of asbestos fibre exposure at the Grand Burstin Hotel in Folkestone.

External links

• Official website