A new purpose-built easyHotel is to be located in Oxford, subject to planning permission.
The super budget brand has signed a 25-year lease on a site in the Summertown area of the university city.
The site is to be redeveloped as a mixed use property with the 180-room hotel on the first and second floors expected to open in the second half of 2019.
High land costs and the lack of suitable, available sites have made Oxford a very difficult city in which to develop hotels in general, and budget hotels in particular, with only 200 new hotel rooms having opened in the city in the last five years, according to easyHotel.
The Oxford site takes easyHotel’s pipeline of owned development projects to 781 rooms in addition to 1,236 franchise rooms under development.
CEO Guy Parsons said: “Oxford is a premier business and tourist destination with over seven million visitors per year.
“The city has been on our target list for some time and we are pleased to have agreed terms on this new hotel, which will be the closest branded budget and super budget hotel to the city centre.
The board looks forward to announcing further opportunities for the easyHotel brand as we expand our development pipeline.”