A MAJOR Glasgow city centre hotel will change name after being sold to a hotel group.

The 278-bedroom Premier Inn at Charing Cross has been sold to Britannia Hotels. 

The British hotel group owns 63 hotels across the UK.

Now, it has acquired the Premier Inn, located just off the M8, for a guide price of £8.5m, insider.co.uk is reporting.

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Following the sale, the hotel will change name to Britannia Inn Glasgow, according to the Britannia Hotels' website.

It comes as Whitbread, the owners of the Premier Inn, are reconfiguring its network of hotels in Glasgow, following the opening of the 249-bedroom Premier Inn and Bar + Block restaurant at St Enoch Square last June.

This latest acquisition will be Britannia Hotel’s 64th and takes its total room count to almost 12,300.

Alex Langsam, managing director at Britannia, told the business news site: “I am delighted with our latest acquisition which will be our fifth hotel in Scotland.

“This city-centre, high rise property joins the city, coast and country hotels we offer across our group, which also includes Pontins Holiday Parks.

“We remain keen to grow our group further using the cash resources we have generated over the years which means we can move quickly to secure hotels on an all cash basis.”

Jeremy Jones, heads of hotels brokerage at Christie & Co, who are behind the deal, said: “After a competitive bidding process we are delighted to complete this important sale to Britannia Hotels, which follows on the heels of our success acting in the sale of The Lorne Hotel, Glasgow.

“We are experiencing higher demand for such city centre hotels.”

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Brian Sheldon, regional director of Scotland for Christie & Co, who supported the sale on a local level, added: “This is a prime example of the buoyancy across the Glasgow and wider Scottish hotel market at present, with the demand for accommodation across Scotland on the rise.

“We are currently speaking with buyers across all price points with genuine aspirations to add to their portfolios and often surpassing client expectations with local, wider UK and international buyers as a result.”