Britannia Hotels

Overview

Britannia Hotels was founded in 1976 with the purchase of the Britannia Country House Hotel in Didsbury, Manchester. Its Chief Executive, founder, and largest shareholder remains Alex Langsam. Langsam is a non-domiciled taxpayer, registered as living in Austria for tax-purposes since 1999. His net personal worth was valued at £90 million in 2013 by The Sunday Times.

Its head office is based in the old town hall in Hale, Manchester. A large cluster of the company's hotels are located in and around Manchester.

Soon after its foundation Britannia began making a number of further acquisitions.

The second purchase in 1981 was a derelict listed building in central Manchester (the former Watts Warehouse standing on Portland Street, Manchester). After redeveloping the unit it opened in May 1982 as the Britannia Hotel Manchester. At the end of 1982 British Rail sold off its hotel division - British Transport Hotels. From this sale, in 1983 Britannia bought the Britannia Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool.

In 1987 Britannia Hotels converted an unused building in Manchester that had been the city's C&A department store - this became the Sachas Hotel. Later in the same year Bosworth Hall, a country house style hotel in Market Bosworth Leicestershire, was purchased. Bosworth Hall was being converted from a hospital/nursing home into a hotel and Britannia took over the development from the builders who went bankrupt. In 1988 the company purchased and began development of the International Hotel adjacent to Canary Wharf in the London's Docklands. The hotel opened on 9 June 1992. A year later, Britannia took over a 187-bedroom hotel in Stockport. After a period of refurbishment the Britannia Stockport Hotel opened in 1993. In the summer of the same year the group also purchased the Europa Hotel situated close to Gatwick Airport.

In the following 10 years the group acquired 16 more hotels in locations such as Birmingham, Aberdeen and Newcastle. In November 2004 it acquired four hotels from the Grand Leisure Group: the Grand Hotel in Scarborough, the Grand Hotel in Llandudno, the Grand Burstin Hotel in Folkestone and the Grand Metropole in Blackpool. In January 2011, the company bought North West holiday camp business Pontins out of administration in a £18.5m deal which safeguarded about 1,000 jobs. Following the acquisition Britannia had to deal with a series of complaints.

From 2005 to 2015 the Group enjoyed its most rapid period of expansion acquiring 23 hotels - including the Palace Hotel in Buxton and the Basingstoke Country Hotel acquired from the Hotel Collection and the Trecarn Hotel Torquay and Cavendish Hotel in Eastbourne.

Events

The 1988 Philip Saville film The Fruit Machine featured interior and main entrance scenes of the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool, including a vertical pan shot past the lit marquee at night.

In 2008 as part of the Capital of Culture celebrations, a musical based on the Adelphi Hotel, written and directed by Phil Willmott, Once Upon A Time At The Adelphi, ran at the Liverpool Playhouse from 30 June until 2 August.

In early 2014 Michael Palin and Mark Addy were filmed within the Grand Scarbrough Hotel for scenes for the BBC drama Remember Me.

Controversies

In the mid-1980s, Alex Langsam, owner of the Britannia Hotel Group, acquired the Grade II* listed London Road Fire Station in Manchester. Proposals have been made to redevelop it into a hotel and offices, however the plans have been delayed. In 2006 it was placed on English Heritage's register of "at risk" historical buildings. The city council has attempted to compulsorily purchase the building but on 29 November 2011, it was rejected.

In 2005 and 2006 the Grand Hotel in Scarborough and the Adelphi were investigated by the BBC over theft and hygiene.

In 2007 the Britannia hotel in Stockport was listed on TripAdvisor as among Britain's dirtiest. Whilst others have been prosecuted, for example Coventry and the Britannia Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool. In November 2015, the Liverpool Echo investigated a guest's complaints about the Adelphi

In 2013 the chain was successfully prosecuted for putting guests and construction workers at risk of asbestos fibre exposure at the Grand Burstin Hotel in Folkestone.

In 2016 newspaper investigations revealed that many Britannia hotels were housing asylum seekers.

Awards and nominations