Best Western to launch four brands in the UK next month

Four Best Western brands will be launching in the UK on 11 April: Sadie, Aiden, Executive Residency and Gle.

Best Western GB chief executive Rob Paterson (pictured) said the consortium had "already signed a couple of sites", which will be announced at the launch next month.

Paterson said Best Western GB sees its growth opportunities through the soft brands in the UK, particularly Sadie and Aiden: "Consumers are looking for unique experiences therefore investors are looking to develop more unique experiences."

Best Western also acquired the upper upscale and luxury hotel marketing consortium WorldHotels last month, adding 300 independent properties to the group's portfolio, including the Washington Mayfair hotel, the Caesar hotel, the Royal Garden hotel, the Courthouse hotel and the Courthouse Hotel Shoreditch in London.

Paterson confirmed Best Western GB would be looking at expanding further into the upper upscale and luxury market following the acquisition: "It's far too early for us to say what the targets are but it's certainly a new market for us to go after."

He said the acquisition and the retention of the WorldHotels brand would open up opportunities with owners who may have previously been put off by the association that even the group's upscale BW Premier Collection brand has with the midscale market: "We've got a lot of owners who have Best Western hotels and have four to five-star products that can't put them with us, so all of a sudden there's a home for them and we can go back and talk to them, so our investors are happy about that, and obviously that helps our scale…

"It's more like a merger than an acquisition because we're keeping everything that's WorldHotels [including the logo]… they're complementing our offering."

Best Western has more than 260 member hotels in the UK.

Best Western acquires WorldHotels >>

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