Business for Belfast as peace progresses

BELFAST's hotel industry is anticipating an influx of business in the wake of renewed confidence from the peace agreement.

Granada has acquired the 76-bedroom, central Belfast Holiday Inn for about £5m, intending to turn it into a Travelodge hotel. Some of the meeting rooms are to be converted to increase the number of bedrooms.

The group, which has four Travelodge hotels in Northern Ireland, is also building a new 170-bedroom Posthouse hotel, to open in two years' time.

Hotel and property group Andras House, which sold the Holiday Inn hotel to Granada, is currently in negotiations with Holiday Hospitality over adding more Holiday Inn hotels to Belfast. "The political situation will help the industry. There is certainly more confidence in tourism since the Good Friday agreement," said managing director Diljit Rana.

British firms moving into the city will also bring more business to conference hotels, he claimed.

Rana plans to upgrade Belfast's Holiday Inn Express to a full-service, four-star Holiday Inn. Andras is also building a five-star hotel at Shaw's Bridge and a further 200-bedroom budget hotel within the city's Lincoln Centre leisure development, both due for completion in 2000.

by Christina Golding