NI firm wins contract to develop hotels across UK

A Northern Ireland property and leisure company today teamed up with a leading Scottish hotel management company to develop hotels worth hundreds of millions of euro across Britain.

The Kennedy Group of Coleraine, Co Derry and BDL Management Ltd of Glasgow said they had a five year hotel development plan which would have an end investment value of over £600m (€883m).

Their joint venture company, Ramcore Hotels, aims to complete up to 40 contemporary lifestyle hotels under the Ramada Encore brand by 2012.

The Kennedy Group already has substantial hotel interests in the North, but financial director Chris Kennedy said: “This partnership with BDL enables the group to grow a presence in a totally new market.

“Through Ramcore we have already secured five hotel sites in Birmingham, Warrington, Ipswich, Glasgow and Hemel Hempstead with an additional 12 locations in the pipeline.

“As well as substantial investment made by both partners, Bank of Scotland has also provided an initial £150 million finance package.”

Kennedy’s interest in the Northern Ireland hotel sector includes the Ramada Hotel in Portrush, Co Antrim and the Bay View Hotel a few miles along the coast at Portballintrae.

A joint venture partnership with regeneration specialists CUSP will see the opening of a 90 bedroom Express by Holiday Inn at Antrim’s Junction Retail and Leisure Park.

The partnership has also just begun the construction of a 169 room Ramada Encore hotel as part of the St Anne’s Square development in Belfast.

The two new hotels will be managed for Kennedy by BDL Management.

BDL is known in the hotel industry as ’the name behind the brand’ and have had a major influence over the rapid roll-out of Express by Holiday Inn brand in the UK since 2000.

The company said it now intended to repeat the success with the Ramada Encore brand.

Mr Kennedy said it was Ramada Encore was “a contemporary mid-market lifestyle hotel with streamlined services relevant to today’s younger business and leisure traveller.”

BDL’s chief executive Louis Woodcock said: “We have a proven track record in the global brand hospitality industry and this will be complemented by the Kennedy Group’s experience of managing and maximising the return on mixed use developments.

“We see this as a winning combination.”