Principal Hotels launches Applause Rewards for its new UK city centre brand

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• Andrew says:

  5 Jun5 June 09:11

  “Principal” has been going for around a decade hasn’t it?

  The Palace Hotel was probably the worst 4* hotel in Europe – it wouldn’t take much to improve it. The George was quite prestigious 20 years ago when it was the hotel of choice for our “senior management” in Edinburgh whilst we ordinaries stayed in the Carlton Highland (now Hilton).

  I last stayed in the Royal York around 2005. It had a few oddities. The generously sized basement rooms had opaque windows – it was only in the morning it became obvious that they faced onto a noisy ramp in the internal courtyard that serviced the kitchens. The 4th & 5th floor tower rooms weren’t serviced by a lift, so it was drag the luggage up the stairs – that may well have changed now of course.

  It’s all part of the hotel merry-go-round where a hotel is refurbished, changes brands, is allowed to fade, switched to a “lower brand”, transfers to a different brand, degrades then is finally refurbished and rebranded again.

  • Rob says:

    5 Jun5 June 09:29

    The name has been around, yes. If you read The Caterer article you will see how they came to use it.

• RussellH says:

  5 Jun5 June 10:50

  As a very, very young child I was completely amazed to discover that there was a hotel in central London (at the time I thought that hotels were at the seaside) and even more amazed to see that it was named after me!

  I definitely feel a part of my past life disappearing with the refurbishment!

• Mark says:

  6 Jun6 June 00:49

  The Principal branding seems very generic.

  Given that they have bought existing hotels it would seem better to rename them along the lines as “The George, a Principal Hotel”.

  I wonder what name they give the Roxburgh Hotel in Edinburgh (in the Caterer article it is listed as being as a partner) as it has entrances on George Street (the other end from the Principal [ex George Hotel {long ex-Intercontinental}]) and could be easily confused it would need another name than Principle.

  The Roxburgh seems to be undergoing a large refurbishment not long after being refurbished, and reflagged, to become a Crowne Plaza in 2013.

• David says:

  6 Jun6 June 17:13

  I’ve just checked out of the Principal Manchester, having arrived feeling apprehensive as a result of two previous visits over the past ten years when it was dull, dark and tired, I have to say I was impressed. The bedrooms are gorgeous and the restaurant space where breakfast is served stunning.

  I like their anti-penny pinching approach. I was there for a conference, and the free ‘tuck box’ concept went down a storm. For the price of a kitkat and a penguin, they won a lot of people over and created a talking point amongst delegates (many of whom were overseas and I suspect had never had a penguin before)!

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