umi Hotels is a budget hotel chain that is based in Leinster Square in Bayswater

Bayswater

Bayswater is an area of west London in the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to the west . It is a built-up district located 3 miles west-north-west of Charing Cross, bordering the north of Hyde Park over Kensington Gardens and having a population density of...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. They have hotel

Hotel

A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...

s in London, Brighton

Brighton

Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...

 and Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

.

History of umi Hotels

umi Hotels was established by Steve Lowy, an alumnus of Salford Business School

Salford Business School

Salford Business School is a business school located 3 km west of Manchester city centre in the Maxwell Building on the Peel Park Campus of the University of Salford. It is one of the University's twelve constituent academic departments...

 with the explicit aims of providing luxury hotel accommodation at budget hotel prices.

umi's first hotel was previously known as The Westminster Hotel, this was changed to umi Bayswater, umi Hotel and eventually umi Hotel London as the umi brand expanded to incorporate a Brighton seafront hotel previously known as The Belgrave Hotel, which would become umi Hotel Brighton. At the end of 2009 umi expanded to incorporate a Central Moscow hotel known as Petrovka Loft.

Best Budget Hotels

umi's London Hotel was voted by The Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...

as one of The Top 50 Budget Hotels in The World.

Beyond Hotel Franchising

In 2010 umi incorporated Petrovka Loft Hotel Moscow which would serve as umi's first franchised hotel that followed the same brand ideals and marketing method as the other umi hotels. umi Hotels then set about creating a new bespoke booking engine called BookitWith.com allowing umi to increase the offering and value for potential franchisees.

Bookitwith.com also allows umi to supply hotel booking software to other hotel groups and individual hotel costs, with umi's Founder Steve Lowy stating the benefit being that this software has been "developed by hoteliers for hoteliers, rather than by travel agents"..

umi Hotels Websites

umi Hotel London

umi Hotel Brighton

Petrovka Loft Moscow Hotel

Other Group Websites

umi Hotels Group

umi Marketing

BookitWith.com

Steve Lowy Blog