Britannia Hotels

Foundation and early years

Britannia Hotels was founded in 1976 with the purchase of the Britannia Country House Hotel in Didsbury, Manchester. Its chief executive, founder, and largest shareholder remains Alex Langsam. Langsam is a non-domiciled UK resident, registered as living in Austria for tax purposes since 1999. His net personal worth was valued at £401 million in 2025 by The Sunday Times.

The company's head office is Halecroft, a Grade II* listed building in Hale. A large cluster of the company's hotels are located in and around Manchester.

Soon after its foundation, Britannia began making a number of further acquisitions. The second purchase in 1981 was a derelict listed building in central Manchester (the former Watts Warehouse standing on Portland Street). After redeveloping the unit, it opened in May 1982 as the Britannia Hotel Manchester. At the end of 1982, British Rail sold off its hotel division, British Transport Hotels. From this sale, in 1983, Britannia bought the Britannia Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool.

In the mid-1980s, Alex Langsam acquired the Grade II* listed London Road Fire Station in Manchester for the group. Proposals to redevelop it into a hotel and offices were delayed and, in 2006, it was placed on English Heritage's register of "at risk" historical buildings. The city council's attempt to compulsorily purchase the building was rejected on 29 November 2011. In 2015, Britannia sold the building to Allied London which began redevelopment as a mixed-use leisure and hotel facility.

The 1988 Philip Saville film The Fruit Machine featured interior and main entrance scenes of the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool, including a vertical pan shot past the lit marquee at night.

In 1987, Britannia Hotels converted an unused building in Manchester that had been the city's C&A department store - this became the Sachas Hotel. Later, in the same year, Bosworth Hall, a country house style hotel in Market Bosworth, Leicestershire, was purchased. Bosworth Hall was being converted from a hospital/nursing home into a hotel and Britannia took over the development from the builders who went bankrupt. In 1988, the company purchased and began development of the International Hotel adjacent to Canary Wharf in London. The hotel opened on 9 June 1992. A year later, Britannia took over a 187-bedroom hotel in Stockport. After a period of refurbishment, the Britannia Stockport Hotel opened in 1993. In the summer of the same year, the group also purchased the Europa Hotel situated close to Gatwick Airport.

Development since 2000

In the following 10 years, the group acquired 16 more hotels in locations such as Birmingham, Aberdeen and Newcastle. In November 2004, it acquired four hotels from the Grand Leisure Group: the Grand Hotel in Scarborough, the Grand Hotel in Llandudno, the Grand Burstin Hotel in Folkestone, and the Grand Metropole in Blackpool. In January 2011, the company bought North West holiday camp business Pontins out of administration in an £18.5 million deal which safeguarded about 1,000 jobs. Following the acquisition, Britannia had to deal with a series of complaints.

From 2005 to 2015, the group had its most rapid period of expansion, acquiring 23 hotels, including the Palace Hotel in Buxton and the Basingstoke Country Hotel acquired from the Hotel Collection and the Trecarn Hotel Torquay and Cavendish Hotel in Eastbourne. In 2016, Britannia Hotels also purchased The Bromsgrove Hotel & Spa which had been owned and operated by Hilton. Later in 2017, Britannia Hotels acquired the Royal Hotel in Hull from the Mercure Hotel Group, expanding to 53 hotels.

Reviews and prosecutions

Reviews

Britannia Hotels has been subject to widespread criticism on many issues, most notably in hygiene and maintenance. In November 2025, consumer group Which? declared Britannia Hotels to be the worst hotel chain in the United Kingdom for 12 years, in last place with an overall score of 44%. Britannia Hotels had been last place in the Which? hotel chain rankings since October 2013, when the editor Richard Headland warned that other chains (such as Premier Inn) were undercutting Britannia with better service at similar prices.

In 2005 and 2006, the Grand Hotel in Scarborough and the Britannia Adelphi were investigated by the BBC over theft and hygiene. In November 2014, an undercover investigation by the Liverpool Echo found issues with the upkeep of both the exterior and interior of the Adelphi, warning that the ageing interiors and basic service placed Britannia Hotels at a disadvantage in the fast-evolving "cut-throat" tourism industry. In 2019, Which? journalists found the Britannia Lodge near Gatwick Airport to be in a worse condition, reporting smells of damp because of a clogged ventilation fan, a bathroom affected by mould, and stains revealed under ultraviolet light. In the following year, Which? reported that the situation had not improved, despite the COVID-19 pandemic and the renewed interest in luxury hotels for staycations.

Hotel research and booking site Oyster.com has reviewed a number of Britannia Hotels. The website commended most of the reviewed locations for their proximity to city centres or public transport hubs and efforts to renovate some rooms in the Manchester location, but raised concerns about outdated interiors, inconsistent maintenance, and Wi-Fi access fees, the latter generally considered inappropriate in a country where internet access is a major part of daily life.

In December 2018, the Britannia Royal at Kingston upon Hull cancelled a charity reservation for rough sleepers on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day without giving a reason. The incident led to a criticism against Britannia Hotels, which temporarily removed its presence from social media.

Asylum contracts

Britannia Hotels is one of the best-known providers of asylum seeker accommodation in the UK. This has led to Alex Langsam being described as an "asylum king" by The Daily Telegraph.

Protests at the Britannia Canary Wharf took place after an asylum seeker staying there entered a nearby flat. The case was dropped due to lack of evidence.