Budget hotel brand easyHotel has agreed further bank funding to support its Europe-wide expansion, as it plans a significant increase in its presence in Spain.
A loan agreement with Spanish lender CaixaBank for the amount of GBP24.5m will support easyHotel’s new projects across the country, with four new hotels in prospect. These will kick off with the opening of a new hotel in Madrid in spring 2025, followed later in the year by additions in Valencia and Barcelona. A fourth hotel, in Alicante, is expected to be ready for guests in 2026.
Investors backing the brand
Currently sitting at 50 hotels, across 11 European country markets, easyHotel is on a growth spurt, with backing from investors ICAMAP Investments and Ivanhoe Cambridge. The company has received backing from other banks to support its expansion around the continent. Santander UK has already advanced GBP42.5m to support expansion across Europe, while the company’s French property, a 111 room hotel in Marseille, was backed by a GBP6m loan from local funder BRED Banque.
Currently, easyHotel has three Spanish hotels trading. Its Barcelona Fira property is close to the city’s main exhibition centre, while Madrid Centro Atocha is just to the south of the city’s main tourist attractions and opened in early 2023. And in Malaga, the city’s easyHotel is just minutes from the Maria Zambrano rail station.
For its second hotel in the Spanish capital, easyHotel has secured a new build in the city’s San Blas-Canillejas district. Developer Redentum Partners is completing the 94 room project to meet the brand’s consistent requirement for a low carbon, highly energy efficient building.
The Valencia hotel will have 95 rooms and again will be a new development on a site in the city centre that has already been approved for a hotel development. In Alicante, Xpandia Projects is putting together a new build, 97 room hotel that will be just five minutes walk from the city centre.
Aside from supporting new hotel projects, easyHotel is also investing in improving its existing properties. Funds from the Santander loan will be used to upgrade the energy efficiency of hotels, with low-carbon initiatives including the installation of heat pumps, smart metering systems and a full refurbishment of the easyHotel in Glasgow. Nine hotels across France, Belgium Spain and the Netherlands have all been put on the energy efficiency programme.
Expanding the team
At the end of 2024, easyHotel appointed Anja Bachmann as head of development in Germany and the Netherlands. Anja joins from The Embassies, and also previously worked with hybrid hostel operator Meininger, and European real estate developer and project manager GBI.
The group already has a strong presence in the Netherlands, with seven hotels, but is only beginning in Germany, where it has a solo hotel in Berlin. In France, there are currently two easyHotels in Paris plus one in Nice and one in Marseille.
