Dalata Hotel Group opens £45m hotel in Manchester

Dalata Hotel Group Plc, which has four hotels in Northern Ireland, has officially opened its second hotel in Manchester, creating a further 87 jobs.

The £45 million, 18-storey, Clayton Hotel features 329 bedrooms and five state-of-the-art meeting rooms equipped with the industry-leading Clevertouch technology which can host up to 153 delegates.

The new Clayton Hotel Manchester City Centre is the Dalata Hotel Group’s second hotel in the area alongside Clayton Hotel Manchester Airport. Next month Dalata, which is the largest hotel group in Ireland and also owns Maldron Hotels, will open the Maldron Hotel Manchester City Centre.

Dalata also operates four hotels in Northern Ireland, the Maldron Hotel Londonderry, Maldron Hotel Belfast International Airport, Maldron Hotel Belfast City and Clayton Hotel Belfast.

The main contractor for the construction was Russell WBHO on behalf of Property Alliance Group. The site was previously home to a 12-storey office block which was demolished as part of the £45m project.

Dermot Crowley, chief executive of the Dalata Hotel Group said the hotel openings were further evidence of the company’s confidence in Manchester, the North-West region and indeed the UK market.

He said: “This is the first of six new hotels that we are opening in the first half of this year. Four of these hotels are in the UK. We have four further properties in our UK hotel pipeline, showing our continued commitment to our UK expansion strategy. We continue to look for further opportunities in the large cities around the UK.

“Dalata has had a presence in Manchester since 2015 with the Clayton Hotel Manchester Airport. By the end of February this year, we will have a Clayton and Maldron hotel in the city centre with construction due to get underway this year for another Maldron Hotel on Chapel Street in the city.

“Clayton Hotel Manchester City Centre has been made possible through the hard work of our partners on the project – Russells WHBO who constructed the hotel, Property Alliance Group who put together the project as developers, and Aviva who funded the scheme. I hope that we can work together again on future projects.

“We recognise the current challenges in recruiting and retaining people in the hospitality industry as a result of Covid. We look to overcome these challenges by offering people opportunities to grow their careers in Dalata within a culture of integrity, fairness and inclusion.

“We have assembled a great team under general manager, Filiz Smith who moved from the Clayton Hotel Manchester Airport where she had been deputy general manager since 2018. Many of the team have moved to the hotel from other Dalata hotels in the UK.

“I look forward to seeing this new hotel become an established part of the Manchester community in the coming months and years.”

Sheona Southern, managing director at Marketing Manchester continued: “The opening of this brand-new 329 bedroom hotel presents a significant mark of confidence in the strength of the visitor economy in Greater Manchester and specifically Manchester city centre, as well as an important level of investment along the Portland Street corridor.

“I wish the team every success with their opening and we at Marketing Manchester look forward to working in partnership to promote the hotel as both a leisure and business tourism destination.”

Alex Russell, managing director of Property Alliance Group, added: “The opening of the Clayton Hotel is the culmination of several years of planning and hard work by the whole project team. We knew the site would be the ideal location for a hotel of this calibre and worked with our partners to deliver it quickly and effectively, despite the pandemic. It’s fantastic to see the team’s efforts pay off and the Clayton Hotel begin to welcome its first Manchester visitors.”

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

In order for us to continue to provide high quality and trusted local news on this free-to-read site, I am asking you to also please purchase a copy of our newspaper whenever you are able to do so.

Our journalists are highly trained and our content is independently regulated by IPSO to some of the most rigorous standards in the world. But being your eyes and ears comes at a price. So we need your support more than ever to buy our newspapers during this crisis.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our local valued advertisers - and consequently the advertising that we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you helping us to provide you with news and information by buying a copy of our newspaper when you can safely.

You can also enjoy unlimited access to the best news from across Northern Ireland and the UK by subscribing to newsletter.co.uk

With a digital subscription, you can read more than five articles, see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times, and get access to exclusive newsletters and content. Visit https://www.newsletter.co.uk/subscriptions now to sign up.

Thank you