The owners of Liverpool's Adelphi Hotel have revealed soaring sales and big profits for the last 12 months - despite being rated the country's worst chain for a seventh year running.
Britannia Hotels said its revenues have risen by 19% year on year, with the firm in charge of the city's Ranelagh Street site reporting an increase in gross profit of more than £10m.
Britannia has more than 60 hotels across the UK, and its new accounts released this week to Companies House follow damning research figures published by Which? back in October, BusinessLive reports .
In that study , guests gave its hotels one-star ratings in nearly every category including value for money, comfort and food and drink, giving it an overall score of under 40%.
However, in new accounts released this week on Companies House , the firm offering over 10,000 bedrooms to guests in locations up and down the UK, reported various positives.
Click here to see who's behind Britannia Hotels - and which sites it owns.
The documents released on January 3 said seven sites had been added to the Britannia portfolio during the past year, adding that trading conditions show "some signs of improvement at selected locations".
It said: "The hotel industry in the UK is becoming increasingly competitive and this brings an increased risk of losing major sales accounts to competitors. The group manages to control this risk by adding improved services whilst retaining highly competitive prices and maintaining good customer relationships."
The documents also said increased competition in the hotel industry has placed "additional demands" on the business.
It added: "The strategic acquisitions of hotels made during the current year is expected to increase our service offering. The directors recognise that economic conditions in the short term are likely to put strains upon the business and have carefully considered the availability of working capital and likely levels of trading over the next 12 months.
"They are confident that the business is well placed to meet the challenges including the uncertain outcome of Brexit."
They said turnover for the firm rose from £96.9m in 2018 to £115.4m in the year to March 31, 2019 - an increase of around 19%.
In terms of gross profits, the firm made £75m in 2019, up over £10m from 2018's £64.4m.
Despite that, 2019's numbers for operating profit were down on 2018's - £19.3m from £20.7m - due to higher administrative expenses.
The research revealed by Which? in October included over 40 well-known hotel chains, and asked more than 8,000 hotel guests to rate everything from bed comfort, to value for money as well as the quality of food and overall cleanliness.
EasyHotel and Ibis Budget were among the worst hotel chains but it was Britannia that continued to sit bottom of the Which? annual satisfaction survey.
Guests gave Britannia, whose hotels include The Adelphi in Liverpool city centre, a string of one-star ratings in almost every category with a score of only 39%.
Cleanliness proved to be a particularly sore point with guests repeatedly using words such as ‘filthy’, ‘dreadful’ and ‘scruffy’. On average guests were 10 times more likely to rate Britannia poorly in this category than across almost all the other hotel chains.
For more great business content from across Liverpool and the rest of the UK, visit BusinessLive .
