Olympic Effect on Hotels in East London

Following the 2012 Olympics, the number of new hotels in east London is set to boom with Tower Hamlets taking 12 per cent of London's new hotel beds planned for the next 20 years to 2031.

The area surrounding the Olympic Stadium in Stratford in east London has undergone a huge change with a multi million pound regeneration project spurred on by the sporting event which brought the newly redeveloped area to the attention of millions of people worldwide.

Stratford is a growth area with the re-opening of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park drawing visitors and hotel developers to the area which already has attractions like Westfield Stratford City, the Olympic Stadium and the eight former Olympic venues within the park.

New Hotels

New hotels like The International Quarter, Stratford City, by Starboard Atlantic Hotels LLP, a joint venture between Starboard Hotels and Union Hanover Securities, will see the rise of an 18-storey hotel complex within The International Quarter providing up to 500 bedrooms overlooking the former London 2012 Athletes’ Village, due to open in 2016.

Other investors in the area include Manhattan Loft Corporation which is developing Manhattan Loft Gardens, a 42 story double-cantilevered tower with expansive living spaces, three sky gardens and a design hotel. The company is set to spend £300 million on the project with construction anticipated to commence in early 2014 and due to be completed in 2016.

New Ski Centre

The company behind the giant Westfield Stratford City shopping centre - with its 250 shops, a 17 screen Vue cinema and the UK's largest casino - is due to submit a planning application to the London Legacy Development Corporation by the end of summer 2013 for a major leisure attraction including London's first indoor ski facility. The new ski centre, expected to be more than double size of other similar UK centres, will be built on land adjacent to the shopping centre.

New hotel, retail and restaurant outlets are also expected to be part of the planning application, adding to the existing hotels on the site which include the Holiday Inn Express Royal Docks, Holiday Inn Express London Stratford and the Premier Inn Stratford which is located directly above the Westfield Stratford City shopping centre and offers visitors great views over looking the Olympic Park.

The transport links built in time for the Olympics, including the Stratford International Rail Station, offer high speed train services from Stratford to central London with direct links to St Pancras International from where the Eurostar whisks passengers to and from Europe. An added attraction for hotel developers looking to invest in the area.

One Year On

One year on from London's Olympic and Paralympic Games the future of the former Olympic Park is looking bright. Reopened as the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in July 2013, the park's eight former Olympic venues - including the Copper Box and the Aquatics Centre - have long term private sector futures. And there's the planned creation of new neighbourhoods, including 1,600 homes to be completed and fully occupied by 2023. Just a fraction of the 11,000 new homes planned for the site.

The Olympic Stadium itself will be the new home of grass roots athletics in the UK for the next 50 years. There's more work to do on the stadium with the existing roof and floodlight towers being dismantled from autumn 2013 and a new larger roof put up by spring 2015 when it is expected to be ready to host the Rugby World Cup and from 2016 it becomes home to West Ham United.

High Speed Crossrail Link

In the longer term, the opening of Crossrail in 2018 is expected to add to the benefits of investing in new hotels in this part of east London. The high speed rail link, which is already under construction with work-in-progress evident across London, will run from Heathrow and Maidenhead in the west, through central London and out via Canary Wharf to Woolwich in the south and via Stratford to Shenfield in the east.

Hotels Nearby

There are already a number of hotels planned for the east London city fringe - which offers developers greater scope with higher density development at lower cost - with hotels like Ace Hotel London planned for Shoreditch in September 2013 and Ron Arad's stunning Willow Street Hotel, the first European hotel from master sushi chef Nobu Matsuhisa, also in the pipeline. In 2014 there's the hotly anticipated opening of the Art'otel in Hoxton and not one but two new affordable chic citizenM hotels - citizenM Tower of London and citizenM St Paul's - all in the east of London.

Looking even further ahead to 2015, there's the exciting prospect of the brand new Four Seasons Heron Tower in the City and the Tobacco Dock Hotel & Aparthotel near Wapping which is the first stage of a wider masterplan which will regenerate this part of east London including the Grade I listed St George-in-the-East Church and the historic Tobacco Dock.

With the future of the Olympic Park secured, it's clear that east London makes an attraction proposition for hotel developers.