Management at Leicester’s newest hotel and short-stay apartment complex are already talking to big employers about bookings.
The new Novotel and Adagio hotels are just days from opening, with space for around 500 guests in 252 rooms.
They will help meet a growing demand for rooms within the city for rooms from business and leisure users on the back of Leicester’s strong economy and growing reputation as a tourist and sporting destination.
They sit directly opposite Leicester’s main Highcross shopping centre.
The two hotels – which include a new restaurant called NineB featuring locally sourced produce – are part of a wider £50 million waterside redevelopment, which includes a grade A office block and a new bowling complex in a former Victorian railway station.
The hotels will have an informal opening next week and be fully open on January 20.
A 154 room, 10-storey Novotel is expected to attract corporate clients through the week, and tourists at the weekend.
The six-storey Adagio aparthotel will target people who need a longer-term stay in the city, with rooms featuring cooking facilities and extra storage.
Most Read
Both brands are part of the Accor group, although the complex will remain in the ownership of Leicester property developer Charles Street Buildings.
James Conaghan, general manager of both hotels, said they were setting a new standard for hotels within the group.
He said: “We are 95 per cent of the way there with both hotels, with a few cosmetic things that need to be done.
“By Friday we will be 99 per cent there and by the time we open we will be 100 per cent ready.
“We are opening on Thursday, January 16, but we have restricted bookings to the 20th because we don’t want to put too much pressure on the team for the first four or five days.
“Accor have called us the flagship for Europe and we have already been talking to a lot of banking companies and corporates in the clothes sector about longer bookings.
“There has also been quite a lot of interest from individual booking agents and we have already taken a big booking with a theatre company.”
2020 Leicestershire news
Don’t miss
He said they had 65 core staff – which would grow by 20 or 30 over the busy Christmas period – while housekeeping was being outsourced.
The new 120 seat restaurant is managed by Manish Sharma, who will lead a team of 28 front and back-of-house staff, including a 10-strong kitchen team run by head chef Stewart Westwater.
Mr Conaghan said the hotel interiors had been designed by Koncept ID in Manchester, in partnership with the owners, and featured exclusively commissioned bespoke fittings, including marble columns, atlas carpets, solid brass knobs on the doors, designer lighting and rugs imported from America.
He said the meeting and events rooms could be configured to different sizes, with room for up to 200 people, and featured wireless, interactive 82-inch screens and separate break-out spaces with views across the city centre ads well as their own private bar.
There is also a 170 space car park.