City Inn rebrands as Mint Hotels
CITY Inn, the hotels operator which has specialised in developing new, city centre hotel schemes, is to rebrand all of its properties as Mint Hotels.
The company, which opened its Manchester site three years ago and an outlet in Leeds last year, said that the rebrand had been undertaken to coincide with pre-launch investments in two new hotels which the company is launching the Tower of London (Pepys Street) next month and its new Amsterdam hotel in Spring 2011.
Chief executive David Orr told TheBusinessDesk.com that the rebrand had been embarked upon to shed “misconceptions about the brand”.
The privately-owned company, which also has sites in Birmingham, Bristol Glasgow and Westminster, said that it had created a four-star hotels business that was well-perceived by its customers but had a brand that was “holding it back” as people associated it with some of the lower-star operators in the sector.
He said that the Four Seasons hotel in London had previously been known for many years as the Inn on the Park but added that “that is not a name I suspect they’d choose now”.
Orr added the company began looking for a name that was “memorable but wasn’t too pompous” to reflect the style of its hotels before settling on Mint.
“It is good and democratic and has a universal appeal.”
However, he added that the company had decided to retain the City Cafes brand for its in-house restaurants.
“The rebrand will give City Cafe’s an opportunity to thrive on its own without some of the negative connotations weighing it down.
Orr also argued that trading in the firm’s regional markets had generally been better than last, but said that the London market remained considerably stronger than the regions.
“We’ve traded quite well in Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester. Cities that have good conference and exhibitions offers have done relatively well.”
Accounts for Edinburgh-based City Inn Ltd show that the company declared a pre-tax loss of £4.4m on turnover of £45.7m in the year to March 31, 2009 – the last for which accounts were filed.
