A FEW years ago, Americans looking for affordable lodging in Europe essentially had two choices: book with a familiar American hotel chain or stay at one of the many independently run hotels and bed-and-breakfasts in Britain and on the continent.
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Neither solution was perfect. Bed-and-breakfasts could be hit or miss. And though American hotels provided a certain level of quality assurance, finding one outside a major city was difficult.
But thanks to a new wave of European hotel chains designed with price-sensitive travelers in mind, vacationers have affordable new options. For the budget-minded, there has been strong growth in the economy market. For the style-conscious traveler looking for reasonably priced hotels with a cool bar scene and trendy rooms, boutique hotels are multiplying and forming minichains.
Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the serial entrepreneur who founded the British budget airline easyJet, introduced a new budget concept to Europe in 2005 when he opened the first easyHotels (www.easyhotel.com) in London and Basel, Switzerland. For as little as £30 a night ($60 dollars at $2 to the pound), guests get a tiny hotel room, as small as 65 square feet, with a flat-screen television, a private bathroom with a shower and one towel each. Daily housekeeping services and extra towels are available for a fee. The idea is that customers will accept less space and service in return for a better price. EasyHotels have no restaurants or bars, so guests must go elsewhere for meals.
The rooms are “purely a function of sleep,” said Sir Stelios, who also pointed out the hotels are aimed at travelers on short stays. The main design criteria for the concept were simple, he said: “You have to be able to stand up and have a bathroom.”
Two more easyHotels, in the Earls Court and Victoria neighborhoods of London, will begin taking reservations as soon as February. Over the next five years, three more are planned in London, one in Budapest and another in Switzerland.
For travelers who want a larger room and a restaurant, there is Premier Travel Inn, Britain’s biggest hotel chain, created in July 2004 when Whitbread P.L.C., owner of the Travel Inn chain, acquired Premier Lodge. Now, the company has more than 475 locations including roughly 30 hotels in London, more than 30 in Scotland, 8 in and around Cardiff and more than 40 in Greater Manchester. It has plans to open eight new hotels next year from Belfast, Ireland, to Bracknell, England.
Each Premier Travel Inn (www.premiertravelinn.com) has a restaurant and bar, either as part of the hotel or adjacent to it. Rooms, most of which have king-sized beds, full bathrooms, and tea and coffee makers, start at £47 a night.
Working with Hypnos, the British bedmaker that designs Queen Elizabeth’s beds, Premier Travel Inns overhauled its beds over the summer to offer new mattresses, a choice of pillows and white bed linens with purple throws. The chain promises to refund the cost of the room if a guest doesn’t get a good night’s sleep. An independent audit of each hotel is conducted at least twice a year to check for consistency and involves a “mystery sleeper” who tests for cleanliness, friendliness and comfort.
Don’t expect these options to bring you any closer to the local culture. Rooms are typically cookie-cutter affairs. But as Tom Meyers, editor of Eurocheapo.com says, “Sometimes you just want a nice, clean, air-conditioned, reasonably priced room.”
Eurocheapo recommends Ibis hotels (www.ibishotel.com), in several cities including Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Berlin, Munich and London. Ibis, one of the economy brands of Accor, the giant French hotel company, has 651 hotels in Europe, most of them in France and Germany. Rooms typically cost around 100 euros, $134, at $1.34 to the euro, a night, or less and are no-frills affairs. But the chain promises to solve any problem with a room in 15 minutes or let the customer stay free.
For the style-conscious traveler willing to pay a bit more for a hotel with a cool bar scene and trendy rooms, two chains worth considering are Malmaison (www.malmaison.co.uk) and Hotel du Vin (www.hotelduvin.com), which are both owned and operated by Marylebone Warwick Balfour Group P.L.C.
The chains were created separately in the 1990s from landmark buildings like churches and warehouses that were gutted and given new, stylish interiors behind the original facades. With average prices of £100 to £145, they offer high style at a reasonable cost.
Malmaison, named after the Empress Josephine’s chateau on the outskirts of Paris, is now found in nine British cities. Its newest hotel, opening in Liverpool on Jan. 29, will have 128 rooms with high-speed Internet access and two suites with teak bathtubs, large flat-screen televisions and table-top soccer. Opening rate: £99 a night.
Hotel du Vin puts more emphasis on the sybaritic. Food is cooked with local ingredients, and extensive wine lists include bottles at reasonable prices. Each of the chain’s eight hotels has suites with “party showers” that can fit up to 12 people. There is also bathside waiter service and walk-in humidors.
DAKOTA (www.dakotahotels.co.uk) is a two-year old boutique hotel chain created by Ken McCulloch, the Scottish hotelier who also started Malmaison and is often credited with setting off the boutique hotel craze in Britain. The hub of a Dakota hotel is its restaurant, called the Bar & Grill, and these dining spots usually fill up so quickly with locals on weekends that guests are advised to make reservations well in advance.
“Essentially, Dakota is a Bar & Grill with bedrooms, not a 92-bedroom hotel with a Bar & Grill,” said Kevin Farey, a spokesman.
Rates range from £86 pounds a night at the Dakota Nottingham to £249 pounds for the top rooms at the Dakota in Farnborough, England. There are no discounts. The rate you see is the rate you get.
The growth in affordable options is particularly welcome relief for American travelers who have watched the value of their money plunge against European currencies. In mid-December, the dollar reached a 20-month low against the euro and was at a 14-year low against the pound.
“I was in London just last week, and I paid $2.13 to convert to pounds,” said Jeff Max, chief executive of an e-commerce company, who travels there frequently. “It’s not unusual to go out and have a mediocre Indian or Chinese meal in London now and spend $120. It’s shocking, shocking, shocking.”
Lately, he has taken to staying at Malmaison because it offers “the quality and the style of a much more expensive line and brand at something more affordable.”
