Business

Ramada Plaza morphs into Crowne Plaza in next big Belfast hotel move

Philip Taylor, Europe Hotel Operations Director (UK & Ireland) for InterContinental Hotels Group, pictured with Rajesh Rana, directorAndras Hotels, and Patricia Campbell (director Hotel Openings Europe) and Alistair Twiname (director design & innovation) both from InterContinental Hotels Group
Philip Taylor, Europe Hotel Operations Director (UK & Ireland) for InterContinental Hotels Group, pictured with Rajesh Rana, directorAndras Hotels, and Patricia Campbell (director Hotel Openings Europe) and Alistair Twiname (director design & inno Philip Taylor, Europe Hotel Operations Director (UK & Ireland) for InterContinental Hotels Group, pictured with Rajesh Rana, directorAndras Hotels, and Patricia Campbell (director Hotel Openings Europe) and Alistair Twiname (director design & innovation) both from InterContinental Hotels Group

BELFAST’S largest hotel group Andras Hotels will be opening the first Crowne Plaza hotel in Northern Ireland following the upgrade and rebranding of its flagship Ramada Plaza property at Shaws Bridge.

And the £1.5m investment will see a complete refurbishment of all 120 bedrooms to the exacting Crowne Plaza standards over the next 18 months.

Crowne Plaza Hotels and Resorts is the high-end full-service hotel brand from InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), and it has awarded the Crowne Plaza franchise to Andras Hotels, which also owns and operates the Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express in Belfast.

Andras director Rajesh Rana welcomed this latest working relationship with IHG and said: “We are delighted at overseeing the introduction of Crowne Plaza to Northern Ireland.

“It is recognised worldwide as a market leading upscale hotel brand and this has been in our strategy for quite some time. The Crowne Plaza Belfast will be an asset to the city's tourism market and will help Visit Belfast and the Waterfront hall attract international delegates to the city.

“Our future refurbishment plans for the bedrooms will complement the ongoing investment and improvements we have been making to the property in recent years.

"Our total investment in the hotel will be in excess of £3 million. The investment in the Shaw’s Bridge hotel has been funded by Danske Bank, who have been extremely positive.”

Danske Bank’s head of corporate trading team Lewis McCallan said: “We support many of the key hospitality providers locally and are delighted to work again with Andras Hotels to develop their presence in Northern Ireland.

"We were excited when we heard about the proposal to open the Crowne Plaza Shaw’s Bridge and we recognise this will be a significant boost to both Andras Hotels and to the wider local economy.”

Andras Hotels was founded in Belfast, where it has a 30-year history. It currently operates five internationally-branded hotels with 700 beds in the city. The group opened the Holiday Inn Belfast City Centre last September 2015 and has announced plans to extend its Holiday Inn Express in Belfast’s Queen’s Quarter.

Rajesh Rana said the local company has “fostered an excellent working relationship” with IHG, which has more rooms in more places than any other hotel company, with more than 744,000 guest rooms globally, serving over 150 million guests each year.

The work at the Shaw’s Bridge hotel is the latest investment by Andras Hotels on the site, which has included a complete refurbishment of the Grand Ballroom, lobby and conference suites.

The work will complete stage four of the five-stage plan for the leading hotel with the rebrand to be complete by early December. The bedroom refurbishment will take place over an 18-month period.