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London boutique hotels round-up – Nov. 2011.
Festive Christmas decoration in the Dial restaurant at The Mercer Street Hotel
As we move closer to Christmas and the start of London’s big Olympics year, there are many new developments in the UK capital’s boutique sector – things to look forward to and offers to check out. We summarise what’s hot in the London boutique hotel scene below in our monthly round-up.
The five-star Egerton House Hotel plans to make guests feel even more at home this Christmas with complimentary refreshments in the drawing room.
Of course, we’re not talking orange squash and a plate of sausage rolls here: guests will have free access to sherry and a pot of green tea throughout the day. Those in need of even stronger refreshment might also check out one of Head Barman Antonio’s legendary martinis..
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The Egerton House Hotel has one of the most intimate bar lounges that you'll find in any London hotel
The Sanderson Hotel is adding a much-needed touch of class to the rave scene, by playing host to monthly ‘micro-raves’. According to the London Evening Standard, micro-raves are the latest trend. While raves have a reputation for being sweaty, drug-addled warehouse 90s affairs, these new happenings have been given a more upper-class treatment. One micro-rave organiser, Eazy Bailey, told the paper they were like “warehouse parties done in comfort and style… good service, high quality sound and lighting, comfortable furnishings, a cloakroom and enough loos.”
Meanwhile, Hotel 41 is giving love-struck hopeless romantics a helping hand with their “perfect proposals” scheme. The 5 star boutique hotel will help you in any way they can to pop the question through assisting you in picking out a location or in arranging celebratory music and champagne.
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The Hotel 41 team is eager to help you prepare your perfect marriage proposal so that the answer will be "yes"
2012 will see a new event added to the boutique hotel calendar with the launch of “Independent Hotel 12 – The Business Event for Luxury and Boutique Hotels.” Scheduled for mid-October, the exhibition will be held in Olympia with an expected 100 exhibitors and thousands of visitors.
Global mega-brand Virgin is adding boutique hotels to its already formidable array of business ventures. Chicago will be the first city in the world to gets its own Virgin Hotel, but it is suspected that the Virgin Hotels brand will arrive in London before long, in addition to other top destinations.
In the meantime, there is certainly no shortage of new boutique hotels in London, with the boom predicted by HVS continuing. After initial unexplained delays, the Z Hotel Soho has now opened its doors to guests.
Housed within a dozen converted Georgian townhouses, it has 85 rooms, starting at the bargain price of £85. The official Z Hotels website describes it as, “Everything you need for a couple of nights in town. Concentrated style, an out-of-town price and the West End.”
The Z Hotel Soho has modern rooms for a budget price in a very central Soho location
In addition, Belgraves London is set to open its doors in Belgravia for the first time on January 16th. The latest venture from Thompson Hotels, the new hotel will feature a restaurant by top chef Mark Hix.
Just outside Leicester Square’s W Hotel, an almost seventy-year-old Swiss railway clock was unveiled at the end of the month. Originally designed by Hans Hilfiker in 1944, the clock is part of wider plans to restore the Swiss glockenspiel clock which stood in the square until recently.
Hotel group Radisson Edwardian – with almost a dozen central London hotels including the boutique Mercer Street Hotel in Covent Garden – has just announced exciting new money-saving offers for the festive season.
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Refurbished studio at Radisson Edwardian Mercer Street - check out the company's Christmas offer for the best deal
Between 9th December and 15th January, room rates at all Radisson Edwardian hotels will start as low as £99, and there will be a variety of additional offers. These include 20% of food in the hotels’ restaurants, shopping vouchers, and a special free Christmas afternoon tea. It looks one of the most attractive London hotel deals around this festive season.
The London Hotels Insight blog launched a campaign in late November to promote free WiFi at London hotels – especially in the luxury sector. The “Free WiFi Touchdown” kicked off at the Radisson Edwardian Mercer Street Hotel (formerly the Mountbatten Hotel), which has complimentary WiFi – unlike some other hotels in Covent Garden and London. The campaign “aims to encourage travellers and companies to pick hotels with free WiFi.”
Finally, Andrew Pike, General Manager of the family-owned Milestone Hotel – a boutique luxury hotel in Kensington – revealed to the Telegraph what makes the hotel, and its parent company, different from the big brand names out there: “One of the challenges is that we are a small company operating with some pretty big fish out there.”
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The Milestone Hotel offers a very homely stay with uncompromising 5 star service and standards
But he says that rather than playing them at their own numbers game, “The Red Carnation Collection… looks for a longer term view. We want to offer people a unique quality experience, and even if that’s at the expense of filling the hotel at certain times then that’s more important to us.” You can watch this interview as well as one with the Red Carnation Hotels MD, Jonathan Raggett on the Telegraph’s website.
That completes our news round-up for November 2011. Do watch out for other boutique hotel news stories as they break on London Hotels Insight.
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Photo credits: London Hotels Insight blogger Timea, Egerton House Hotel, Hotel 41, Z Hotels.
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