City Inn freshens up with new branding
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 Birmingham site three years ago in Brindleyplace and an outlet in Leeds last year, said 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 he wanted the change to help the chain shed “misconceptions about the brand”.
The privately-owned company, which also has sites in Manchester, Bristol Glasgow and Westminster, said 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 the Four Seasons hotel in London had previously been known for many years as the Inn on the Park but added “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.”
But the company has decided to retain the City Cafes brand for its in-house restaurants.
“The rebrand will give City Cafes an opportunity to thrive on its own without some of the negative connotations weighing it down,” he said.
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Orr also argued that trading in the firm’s regional markets this year 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 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.
