Premiere for a new hotel brand: Aiden by Best Western will be launched with its first property in Austria. The finished shell construction for the first Aiden by Best Western in Austria was celebrated on October 1 at the modern business location TIC Technology & Innovation Center in Steyr, Upper Austria. Aiden by Best Western is a new boutique hotel brand in the lifestyle segment of the BWH Hotel Group, which was first introduced worldwide at the end of 2018. The new Aiden by Best Western @ Stadtgut Hotel Steyr is expected to open in the second quarter of 2021, just in time for the national exhibition in Steyr. In the future, it will be comprehensively supported in marketing and sales by the BWH Hotel Group Central Europe and is thus part of the global hotel group with around 4,700 hotels.
Lifestyle Concept with Local Flair in Upper Austria
The newly built lifestyle hotel will offer 90 rooms and large, public areas in a regionally adapted, modern design concept. The developer of the project is ER SIE ES Bautraeger from Steyr and a local company, Schmidt+Leitner was assigned as the general contractor of the hotel. The owner of the future Aiden by Best Western is Stadtgut Hotelerrichtungs GmbH in Steyr. The hotel operator is Accent Hotels from Budapest, whose portfolio already includes 23 hotels with more than 1,700 rooms in Austria and Hungary.
“With Accent Hotels we have a successful hotel operator in our group, who is launching the new Aiden by Best Western in Steyr. We are convinced that the group will successfully position this hotel and our new lifestyle brand in Austria,” says Marcus Smola, CEO BWH Hotel Group Central Europe GmbH. Work began in March 2020 on the new hotel building, which is located on over 5,000 square meters in the Stadtgut Steyr industrial park with currently around 50 businesses and 1,300 employees and only a few minutes’ drive from the historic old town of Steyr. The new Aiden by Best Western @ Stadtgut Hotel Steyr is expected to create more than 20 new jobs in the Upper Austrian city.
“We are delighted and very proud that we are able to realize the first Aiden by Best Western in Austria at this attractive and important location. Our hotel will reflect the themes of city, nature and innovation in a very modern way with a special design concept. In this respect, the new lifestyle brand fits perfectly with our individual, stylish hotel,” explains Imre Csordás, CEO of Accent Hotels, who also operates the Best Western Plus Lakeside Hotel in Székesfehérvár, Hungary. The operational company provides 360 degrees hotel management solutions for hotel owners and investors in the CEE region. “Our role as the future operator had already begun in the planning phase of the hotel which is the most ideal way of starting a new hotel project from scratch. Hotels are built for decades thus it is very important for them to be designed in a way that they can be both attractive for guests and practical for operation over time. Together with the professionals of BWH Hotel Group, our team helped the designing process of the hotel in order to optimize an exciting and modern layout where the operational profits can be maximized, and the best ROI can be granted for the developer. Stability, creditability and continuity are with key importance in the hotel business. This is what we want to deliver as hotel operators to our guests and hotel owners, and that is why we are proud to work with partners like BWH Hotel Group and ER SIE ES Bautraeger“, adds Csordás.
Edgy, cool and stylish: “The place to be” in Steyr
Aiden by Best Western is a modern, young hotel concept for upper-midscale hotels, which offer contemporary comfort in an unconventional design, a stylish ambience and smart services. A bar as the centre of a large lobby provides a pulsating meeting place for guests and local residents with regular events. Following these principles, the Aiden by Best Western @ Stadtgut Hotel Steyr will also be equipped with modern interior design, both in the rooms and in the public areas. The interior design concept was done by Conen GmbH from Kramsach in Tirol, led by Emil Steffelbauer. The three themes of urban, nature and metal play a decisive role in the design concept and will refer to the region as well as to the industrial location and history of Steyr with appropriate materials from wood to metal, colours, shapes and lighting. In addition to 90 rooms on three floors, each with an open or closed bathroom, the future three-star hotel will also have a functional meeting room, e-charging stations and 90 hotel parking spaces. The heart of the hotel and thus also in line with the concept of Aiden by Best Western will be the spacious lobby and lounge area with the bar, which will invite and welcome both travellers and locals and will be used as an event area for parties, music and entertainment for the local audience – like kind of a spacious living room and comfortable living space.
Aiden – New Hotel Concept at the Pulse of Time
The Aiden by Best Western @ Stadtgut Hotel Steyr will be the first hotel project of the brand in Austria and the twelfth worldwide. In addition to one hotel in Seoul, Korea, there are so far three Aiden by Best Western in France, one in Italy, five hotels or projects in North America and the Aiden by Best Western in Biberach an der Riss, Germany. The boutique brand Aiden by Best Western is a new hotel concept in the lifestyle segment in the upper-middle class, which was first presented at the end of 2018.
“Quite deliberately, our new Aiden brand offers hoteliers a high degree of flexibility and individuality in the design concept. Aiden by Best Western is unconventional hotels with an urban and contemporary style, offering open space lobbies, for example, and a bold interior design that is out of the ordinary and does not fit into any existing scheme – hip, trendy and stylish,” explains Marcus Smola, CEO BWH Hotel Group Central Europe. Together with his team from the company’s headquarters in Eschborn, Germany, he is responsible for around 300 hotels with a total of 18 hotel brands in Central Europe.
“Today, modern hotel concepts are no longer geared to classic target groups, but – in keeping with the spirit of the times – to the traveller’s mindset, lifestyle and values. With Aiden by Best Western, but also with our second lifestyle brand Sadie by Best Western, we offer hotel developers and hoteliers the opportunity to position their hotels in the dynamic lifestyle segment with our sales and brand power. In doing so, we give hoteliers the freedom to play with styles, contrasts and emotions. We rely on courageous, exciting hotel concepts that attract people with curiosity, a spirit of discovery and a desire for the unusual,” adds Ivona Meissner, who is responsible for the hotel development and support of the hotels in Austria and the Central Eastern Europe region in the group’s Vienna regional office.
