Orrs hope to make a Mint with new brand

City Inn hotels, founded by a father-and-son Scottish business team 15 years ago, has rebranded the chain because they now consider "Inn" to have budget accommodation overtones at odds with its four-star offering.

The group is to be called Mint Hotel, Sandy Orr, executive chairman and co-founder, and his son, chief executive David Orr, revealed yesterday.

The move comes ahead of the company opening up its second London property, the 150 million Tower of London hotel, on 20 December, and Mint Hotels' first overseas expansion with a new 553-room hotel in Amsterdam next spring.

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Orr Snr said: "Our business was created from scratch, it was designed to be a forward-looking, innovative city centre hotel brand.

"Now with the opening of two new world-class hotels in the most exceptional locations in the City of London and Amsterdam we recognised it was time to give our company the branding it deserved."

David Orr said the rebranding would give the group "an instantly memorable identity to embrace the quality and modernity of what we do".

The new name of Mint Hotel was the work of brand consultancy, Diamond. It is not being disclosed how much Diamond was paid.

One source close to the company source said: "It was decided that the word 'Inn' had come to be perceived by the public as being associated with a tight budget offering. The rebranding is therefore far more appropriate to what is an unmistakably four-star status."

The group currently has six UK sites, covering Glasgow, London, Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham. Its renamed Mint Hotel Westminster, the group's existing London outlet, is very much favoured by business people, politicians and the media.

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