Major UK hotel chains are in discussions with the government about turning their properties into temporary hospitals to provide the NHS with emergency bed space or staff accommodation as the coronavirus spreads.
Best Western Great Britain, Hilton, Holiday Inn, Travelodge and Whitbread’s Premier Inn chain are among the operators talking through the logistics of closing their hotels to the public so that rooms can be given to vulnerable groups at enhanced risk of contracting the virus in the coming months.
Best Western’s first hotel to be turned into a hospital support site is expected to open in south London next week, with every bedroom used to house lower-risk patients and NHS staff.
The group is the largest independent hotel chain in the UK, with 270 properties, and said it is willing to take these “unprecedented” steps to help take pressure off the NHS, particularly given the collapse in commercial bookings that has led to hundreds of empty rooms.
Details of the location of the first hotel to open next week are confidential, a Best Western spokesman said.
“However we are in conversations with a number of NHS hospitals and local authorities around the country to see if we can do something similar for them, to help provide accommodation for NHS staff, care workers, lower-risk patients and vulnerable people at this time, such as elderly and homeless people.”
The company also said it hoped to partner with other companies to provide the right medical equipment and supplies.
A source close to the talks involving the wider hotel sector said: “I think that the government was hoping for a more coordinated approach but at least we are now having those conversations.”
The development came after the former Manchester United and England defender Gary Neville announced this week that he is to open his hotels free of charge to health workers to help with the coronavirus crisis.
Neville co-owns two hotels – the Stock Exchange hotel in the city centre and Hotel Football at Old Trafford – with his former teammate Ryan Giggs.
Both hotels will be closed to the public from Sunday, freeing 176 beds for NHS and other medical staff.
The Chelsea FC owner, Roman Abramovich, is also offering to accommodate NHS staff working in London hospitals at the Millennium hotel on Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge stadium site. This would provide rooms for medical staff, many of whom are working around the clock and might struggle to get home, particularly after late shifts.
Two luxury cruise ships berthed at Tilbury Dock in the Thames have also been offered to the government to be used as floating hospitals or to accommodate NHS staff. The Saga Group – the British owner of the Spirit of Discovery and Saga Sapphire – is understood to have written to the government offering the ships should they be required.
Both ships are currently lying mothballed after Saga decided to suspend cruises because of the risk of coronavirus, but were in service until last weekend when one returned to Dover and the other to Southampton. The biggest has 999 berths and facilities for 500 crew, while the other has 500 berths. There are currently three other cruise ships at Tilbury Dock although it is not clear who owns them.