Marriott adds three high-end aparthotels in Edinburgh

Earlier this week, the Cheval Collection chain of aparthotels in London, Edinburgh and Dubai joined Global Hotel Alliance.

We will have more details on this in a couple of days in an interview with GHA CEO Chris Hartley, after we met up in Brussels on Wednesday.

Whether or not this is tied to the GHA move I don’t know, but three Edinburgh properties are leaving Cheval Collection and have signed Marriott.

These are the three properties, one of which is not yet open:

• The Edinburgh Grand on St Andrew Square will join Marriott’s Luxury Collection, the first property under that brand in Scotland. It has 50 apartments.

• Old Town Chambers, opposite St Giles Cathedral, will join Autograph Collection. It has 75 apartments.

• The Colourist, due to open in 2027 on Princes Street, will join Marriott’s Tribute Portfolio, which is (roughly) the four star version of Autograph Collection

All three properties have the same owner, hence the parallel moves. The picture above is The Edinburgh Grand.

What is a little odd is seeing aparthotels joining Marriott’s standard hotel brands. Someone searching for an apartment-hotel is arguably more likely to look at an established brand like Cheval Collection rather than assuming they would find one masquerading as a regular Marriott hotel.

Even more confusingly, there are now three Sonder aparthotels in Edinburgh listed on the Marriott website following a distribution deal recently agreed with Bonvoy. Sonder is a dedicated aparthotel chain and the sites have ‘aparthotel’ in their names.

The two open hotels will join Marriott on 1st July but are not yet bookable via Marriott channels.