From small beginnings with a single 30 bedroom hotel in London’s Earl’s Court, London Town Hotels Limited has grown to a group of hotels spanning central London from Hampstead through Paddington, Bayswater and Notting Hill and, now, to Kensington very close to where the company started out flying the flags of two major worldwide hotel chains.

LTH Group of Hotels (as it was then called) was formed in 1988 with the purchase of the 30 rooms London Tourist Hotel in Earl’s Court. The hotel was extensively refurbished in 1991 and renamed the London Town Hotel. In 1994 the Hotel Plaza Continental in Kensington, with 20 rooms, was added to the fold. In 1996, LTH Group of Hotels made a move into what would, for some years, be its heartland, with the acquisition of the Hillgate Hotel with 65 rooms. The Hillgate Hotel gave the company the chance to really make its mark on the international stage when the Hillgate Hotel became a prominent London member of Supranational Hotels.

By now it was clear that further expansion required branding of hotels to assure clients of the standards they could anticipate at their hotel. In mid-1998 the Hereford Hotel, was acquired, totally refurbished and branded as the Comfort Inn Bayswater, a member of Choice Hotels International. Choice Hotels International is the world’s third largest hotel franchiser. Later that year, The London-London Hotel was purchased. The hotel was extensively refurbished, to a highly acclaimed standard, and joined Choice Hotels in its three star brand as the Quality Hotel Hyde Park. Shortly after this, in 1999, the Hillgate Hotel was also brought into the Choice Hotels stable as the Comfort Inn Notting Hill.

After such rapid growth, a period of stabilisation was welcome but the company was aware of its London W2 concentration and determined to develop more widely. In September 2001, London Town Hotels, as it had now been re-named, acquired two modern, purpose built hotels the Comfort Inn Hampstead and the Elizabetta Hotel in Kensington. Refurbishment began at the Comfort Inn Hampstead even before the acquisition was finalised and, in the Autumn of 2001, the 57-room hotel became the first Comfort Inn in the U.K. to be upgraded to a Quality Hotel. The acquisition had also made London Town Hotels the largest franchisee of central London hotels with Choice Hotels.

The Elizabetta Hotel was closed for extensive refurbishment at the beginning of October 2001. The hotel clearly had the potential to be a 3 star deluxe hotel in a category that could only be with another brand. Agreement was quickly reached with Country Inns & Suites By Carlson, a member of Carlson Hospitality Worldwide and a sister brand of Radisson Hotels & resorts Worldwide and Regent International Hotels. Only the second Country Inn & Suites in London, the location and 82 rooms with very spacious lobby and lounge areas would lead London Town Hotels to pioneer the brand in the U.K., where it is largely unknown, though well established in Germany and Austria and with hotels under construction at Paris Charles De Gaulle airport and in Copenhagen. The Country Inn & Suites By Carlson Kensington is fully described in these pages and opened as the 300th Country Inn & Suites worldwide on 29th January 2002. The story will continue