Up to ten new Cook’s Club beach hotels are being lined up by Thomas Cook.
The new brand aimed at young couples and groups of friends is being expended with openings in Spain, Greece, Turkey, Italy, Egypt, The Gambia and Bulgaria.
The operator will open an additional eight Cook’s Club hotels in 2019 – bringing the total up to 11 – with two further properties in advanced discussions.
The new properties confirmed today (Friday) will bring the number of rooms available up to almost 2,000.
Three of the new Cook’s Club hotels in the pipeline will be refurbishments of existing own-brand smartline hotels.
The remaining seven properties are new to Thomas Cook’s own-brand portfolio, reflecting a strategy of expanding the number of in-house hotels.
Each Cook’s Club hotel combines contemporary design, “simple and stylish” rooms, a street-food style canteen restaurant, cocktail bar and DJ sets.
The first hotel under the Cook’s Club brand opened in June in Hersonissos, Crete, transforming a traditional beachside holiday resort hotel into a stripped-back, design-led property aimed at appealing to a new generation of travellers.
The hotel delivered occupancy levels of more than 93% in its first summer and doubled its average daily room rate over the previous year, according to the company.
Cook’s Club builds on the success of Casa Cook, extending the same design-led ethos to bigger properties at a more accessible price.
More information about the new hotels will be released over the coming weeks with the first hotel set to open in May and further openings throughout the summer and into winter 2019.
Thomas Cook Hotels & Resorts chief hotels officer, Enric Noguer, said: “It’s clear from just the first few months that customers love the new Cook’s Club concept.
“We know it works and that we’ve created a brand that can attract an entirely new type of customer by bringing together great modern design and reflecting the best of our city culture – in food, drink and music – in a popular beachside resort.
“The customer feedback has been great with high occupancy throughout the season and people willing to pay more to get a holiday that better matches their lifestyle.
“The fact that we’re able to announce a further ten openings for next year shows the appetite in the hotel community for this type of hotel.
“We look forward to welcoming tens of thousands of new customers to our new Cook’s Club hotels next summer.”
Thomas Cook’s own-brand hotel portfolio comprises eight brands including the premium family resorts of Sunwing; adults-only retreats of Sunprime; and the club resort collection of Aldiana.
The division on its own ranks in the top 50 hotel companies in the world with around 40,000 rooms in 47 destinations across Europe, Middle East, Asia and North Africa.
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