Jurys Doyle to spend £55m on UK hotels

The Irish hotels group Jurys Doyle is to spend €90m (£55m) expanding in the UK by building three new hotels under its no-frills Jurys Inns brand.

The new three-star hotels, to be built in Glasgow, Leeds and London's Chelsea, will boost the group's room capacity by 16 per cent to more than 7,000. It will finance the developments through "internal resources" and debt.

Pat McCann, the chief executive, said the group had further scope to expand its Jurys Inns brand across the UK. The new hotels, all expected to open by spring 2004, will increase the number of Jurys Inns in the UK to 10.

"Our focus is to continue a capital expenditure program maintaining the onward momentum and growth of the group through a combination of hotel and inns developments in the UK and the eastern US," Mr McCann said.

Mark Abramson, an analyst at Bear Stearns, said the group had done well to find the sites. "It's surprising that the company is able to find these development deals under the noses of some much bigger companies and brands," Mr Abramson said.

The investment is part of up to €750m that the company said recently it was intending to spend over the next three years. Analysts see room for up to 40 Jurys Inns, which are modelled on Marriott's Courtyard brand, across the UK.

The group expects to open a hotel in Boston, New England in early 2004. It also owns three hotels in Washington, which it acquired when it bought Doyle Hotels in 1999.