Our Purpose
25
Years in Business
58
Hotels in the UK
2.9m
Guests welcomed each year
About us
We’re Atlas Hotels, an award-winning hotel franchise group. Our 58 hotels span across cities and towns in the UK, with 13 hotels in Scotland, two in Wales and 43 in England.
Familiar with the Holiday Inn Express and Hampton by Hilton brands? Well, you’ll know our hotels then! With a whopping 55 Holiday Inn Express hotels, it’s no surprise that we’re the biggest franchisee of Holiday Inn Express hotels in Europe.
Read more about the history of Atlas below, or take a look at our hotels here.
- 1996
- 1997-2002
- 2005
- 2008-2010
- 2014-2015
- 2016
- 2017-2018
- 2019
- 2020
- 2021
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Where it all began
Where did it all begin? Well, way back in 1996, Somerston Hotels formed and we opened our first hotel – Holiday Inn Express Warwick – a year later.
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Gaining momentum
Over the next four years, Somerston grew rapidly, adding another 14 (yes, fourteen!) hotels to the group. Things were getting serious…
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Double the fun
2005 was a huge year! We more than doubled in size, going from 15 hotels to 31. At this point, we became Europe’s largest franchisee of Holiday Inn Express hotels (bragging rights included).
By the end of 2006, we had another three hotels under our belt, in Leeds, Dartford and Poole. Still following? Great, so that takes us up to 34 hotels.
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Hello, Hampton!
In 2008, Holiday Inn Express Lincoln opened its doors for the first time and we welcome our first guests to the newly built Hampton by Hilton Liverpool. A few hotels were sold, so we still have 34 hotels by 2010. But not for long…
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Atlas Hotels is born
In 2014, Lone Star bought and merged Somerston Hotels, More Than Hotels plus Holiday Inn Express Hamilton and we became Atlas Hotels. We started managing Hilton Portsmouth which we later transformed into a flagship Holiday Inn Express hotel.
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Portsmouth opens
In 2016, L+R (A big hotel and property investment company) took over Atlas. L+R have hotels and luxury 5-star resorts all over the world. 2016 was also the year Holiday Inn Express Portsmouth – North was opened.
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Excitement in Exeter
In 2017 we announced that we were converting an old office block in Exeter city centre into a shiny new Holiday Inn Express. The 48th hotel in the Atlas family.
There were huge public area transformations in three of our hotels and the extension of Holiday Inn Express Bath was completed. A big year!
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Another new hotel?
A whirlwind year for us! Where did the time go? Work officially commenced on Holiday Inn Express Bicester, our first new-build hotel since Liverpool.
Holiday Inn Express Exeter – City Centre opened in May, our second hotel in sunny Devon. And, more extension projects kicked off in Edinburgh, Hammersmith and Cambridge.
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A new decade begins!
Fast forward to 2020, Holiday Inn Edinburgh West joined Atlas and was transformed into our second Holiday Inn Express in Scotland’s capital. Holiday Inn Express Bicester opened its doors and our extension projects were complete.
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2021
2021. Did that even happen? What a blur! Holiday Inn Express Edinburgh – City West opened its doors after a major refurbishment and rebrand. Some of our hotels received awards for services to the community after housing vulnerable social care users throughout the pandemic.
Towards the end of the year, we gained two more hotels in Birmingham. Say hello to Holiday Inn Express Birmingham – Snow Hill and Hampton by Hilton Jewellery Quarter (Don’t actually talk to buildings, but feel free to go stay in them!).
Our fundraising skyrocketed and we ended the year on an impressive total of £12,500 raised for Young Lives vs Cancer. Pretty cool, huh?