LONDON—In advance of opening a 583-room second London hotel and a property of similar size in Amsterdam in April 2011 (the first hotel outside London), City Inn have rebranded as Mint Hotel. All six existing properties, London’s Westminster, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Glasgow, are also now Mint Hotels.
CEO David Orr, who along with his father Sandy Orr founded the chain in 1995, said the brand had outgrown and out-developed its original name.
“What we (initially) set out to do is create a new brand completely from scratch, from purely new buildings in the centre of cities–hopefully something that would resonate with both business and leisure travelers”, he said. “Over the years, as we’ve evolved and improved the brand, we felt the ‘Inn’ was less appropriate for what the brand had become”.
Research carried out by market research consultancy BDRC Continental found customers’ experience of the four-star hotels as “stylish, modern, contemporary, good value and upmarket”. Bedrooms are ergonomically designed and have password-free, complimentary Wi-Fi access. There is a TV-integrated iMac in every room.
The new Tower of London property, opening on 20 December, will have two roof terraces, herb gardens and a destination bar. The chain also aims to appeal to leisure and business travellers with an interest in arts and culture by using established partnerships with cultural organisations.
“Generally we hope to be an interesting, but not quirky modern alternative to the very good international four and four and a half star brands”, Orr said.
As to whether the name change indicates the brand is expanding, Orr maintained the aim is continued steady growth. “Clearly these things take quite a long time to assemble, but we’ve got a third hotel in London that we’re trying to secure a site for and sites we’re trying to secure in Paris and Rome”.
“We knew what was wrong with the name we had and we wanted to replace that with something that would do all the things that the then current name wasn’t doing. The main thing was really trying to pull all the strands of what the name needed to represent. We tried to use the word ‘city’ for example because that was seen as positive from our own research, but could not find a way of including it. We needed something memorable, but quite short and with positive connotations”.
Much thought went into whether the “Inn” tag was something that now suited the hotels.
Orr said, “In the States, there are some very good and very high end ‘inns’ but there is also, particularly in Britain, Premier Inn, Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express and other Inns that are not necessarily such inspirational brands. For me it has also been something that although was appropriate when the company started in the late ’90s, it’s not something that is now right for the brand. Customers and people who know us really like what we do … however, it’s always been attached to a negative connotation: ‘don’t worry it’s not like an inn’”.
So far the “Mint” has been well received.
“From every respect we thought it was absolutely the right thing to do and the response we have had so far has been excellent”, Orr said.