The future of London's hotels

The capital‘s hotel accommodation is changing rapidly. Peek inside the capsules and five-star stunners of the not too distant future

Lining up a row of big, fat, red hotels along the expensive side of London is one of the joys of playing Monopoly, but the real London hotel market has not always been quite so profitable. In recent years, though, the industry has enjoyed an impressive resurgence, boosted by London’s booming economy, its new-found status as a hip global destination, and more recently by its successful Olympic bid. This growth has tended to impinge on Londoners’ consciousness mainly in the form of interesting new watering holes, like the bars of Firmdale’s boutique hotels such as The Soho, The Covent Garden, The Charlotte Street, and most recently The Haymarket. But in the parallel universe which
Londoners rarely notice, but which fuels the city’s economy to the tune of £15 billion a year, tourism is gearing up for an explosion in demand.
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We can get a glimpse of some of the new developments at an exhibition staged by New London Architecture called ‘Away From Home’. It showcases 50 projects across the capital, ranging from the top end of the luxury market to new ideas for budget accommodation. Over the next five years, 11,300 new hotel rooms will open for business in London, and that’s just the beginning – in all, it’s estimated that around 50,000 extra rooms will be needed by 2026 to cope with increased demand. ‘When we first started looking, we assumed that all the activity would be around the Olympics,’ says Peter Murray, exhibition director of New London Architecture. ‘But we discovered there was a lot more going on than just that.’

Whether these new developments are architecturally interesting depends on who you ask. ‘Hotel design in London is finally kicking into second gear,’ is the withering assessment of Herbert Ympa, author of ‘Hip Hotels’, ‘but it is still not as adventurous or cutting edge as London’s new architecture.’ As far as Murray is concerned, this has more to do with the hoteliers’ lack of vision than the architects’. ‘There has traditionally been a desire by hotel proprietors to create interiors which have a certain character,’ he says tactfully, ‘of which out-and-out modernism is not often the best expression. They’re quite traditional in their styling and very decorative – it’s a kind of olde-worlde sense of luxury. We haven’t brought in the big names of architecture as some foreign hotels have done, like Eva Jiricna’s Josef Hotel in Prague. I think the Sanderson and St Martins were quite cutting-edge for their time, but it’s the capsule hotels like Yotel and easyHotel which could be described as cutting-edge now.’

These no-frills ‘microtels’ can be prefabricated off-site to fit into awkward corners which couldn’t possibly be developed as conventional hotels, and be ready to open within six months. They look set to finish off the small, family-run bed-and-breakfasts which once formed the backbone of London’s hotel industry, but which are more likely now to have been converted into local authority accommodation for the homeless. But at the other end of the market, the traditional five-star destinations are starting to smarten up their act, too. All the Park Lane ‘grande dames’ – Grosvenor House, The Dorchester, Four Seasons and the rest – are lavishing money on trendy refurbs. The Savoy is the latest to sign on the dotted line with hotel specialist ReardonSmith Architects, with a fighting fund of £100m to ensure it looks right for the twenty-first century.

Outside the West End, things are even more bracingly post-millennial, with several new skyscapers, like the Shard of Glass at London Bridge, providing five-star bedrooms and suites for the discerning aesthete, as well as pulling in a homegrown crowd looking for a bar with a view.

‘One of the things that we’ve missed in London, that places like New York or Hong Kong have, is bars at high levels which let you view the city,’ says Murray. ‘But both The Shard and the Jumeirah hotel being built on the South Bank will have places that will give you a good vantage point of London.’

With all this investment being pumped into the hotel business, is the whisper of recession drifting across the Atlantic giving the industry the heeby-jeebies? ‘If there is a serious downtown in the economy, it’s inevitable that hotels will feel the pinch just like everyone else,’ says Murray. ‘At the moment, people are holding their breath, but in any business you don’t want to hold your breath for too long. And of course, the Olympics is going to happen whether there’s a recession or not. So for three weeks of 2012 every hotel room in London will be full, at least.’

‘Away From Home’ is at the Building Centre, 26 Store St WC1 (020 7636 4044/www.newlondonarchitecture.org) Sept 6-Oct 27.

Lisa Mullen, Fri Sep 7 2007