A Liverpool city centre office building is to be converted into a £3m “super budget” EasyHotel.

The hotel operator, founded by Easyjet tycoon Stelios Haji-Ioannou, has acquired the freehold to 47 Castle Street, the ground floor of which is currently occupied by the Salt House Bacaro restaurant.

The restaurant will remain while EasyHotel will convert the four upper floors of the building into a 68-bedroom hotel, subject to planning consent.
It is planned to open in the spring of next year.

EasyHotels offer low prices with the option to pay for extras such as coffee, spare towels, housekeeping and internet. Rooms are priced on the basis of the earlier you book, the less you pay and periods of high demand cost more than less popular periods.

Simon Champion, chief executive of EasyHotel, said: “This acquisition in the centre of Liverpool is fully in line with our strategy to expand our owned hotel portfolio into targeted major UK cities.

“It provides us with the opportunity to create a centrally located hotel for leisure and business customers looking for good quality accommodation at an affordable price.

“Liverpool has substantial inbound tourism, with over half a million visitors per annum, aided by recent inward investment and one of the UK’s busiest airports.

“This combined with domestic demand means it is an attractive location for an EasyHotel.”

EasyHotel was founded in 2004 as a “super budget” hotel group, opening its first hotel in South Kensington, London in 2005. The business was founded by Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, nine years after his launch of EasyJet.

Although still affiliated to Stelios’s EasyGroup through the licensed use of the branding, EasyHotel now operates as an independent company.

It has been successful in winning new franchise contracts and opening its directly owned hotels, with an estate of 19 operational hotels comprising approximately 1,300 rooms at hotels operated by franchisees and approximately 300 rooms owned by EasyHotel.