Metro Hotels is the oldest, one hundred percent Australian owned and managed hotel businesses in the country with hotels and apartments in Sydney, Melbourne and Darwin and it recently expanded its Perth operations to two, taking over the city-based former Comfort Inn at 200 Hay Street and rebranding it Metro Hotel Perth City.
It joins the company’s existing West Australian holding; the Metro Hotel Perth, a landmark on Canning Highway in South Perth, highly regarded for its quality accommodation and easy access to Perth airport.
The new Perth City based hotel puts guests within walking distance of the Swan River foreshore, gardens, parks, restaurants and sporting venues like the WACA. Importantly, it also means guests can now be on the city pickup routes for tour operators.
Metro Hotels Director Sales and Marketing, Deb Carr says that’s an advantage over the existing South Perth property, which has always been extremely popular with domestic visitors from regional areas because of its hassle free traffic and parking.
However interstate and international corporate guests visiting for conferences or other business and looking for complementary tour experiences, often said they preferred the convenience of accommodation closer the city.
Ms Carr says Metro Hotels provides that extra convenience with the new property.
“We are thrilled to now have a property to offer corporates who need to stay in the city; there is plenty of corporate and government business at that eastern end of Perth City and the hotel is so convenient; it’s on the route of the free, regular Red Cat bus for easy access to other parts of the city, including the CBD for shopping, dining, sightseeing or business meetings.”
Metro Hotel Perth City was previously Comfort Inn Perth City – a name that many corporates and regional WA people are familiar with.
It closed during COVID-19 with Metro Hotels taking it over and opening for bookings again in November 2022.
It has 94 rooms of various types, however Metro Hotel Perth (South Perth) General Manager Jeff Hirst – who oversaw the preparations for the reopening, says its long term COVID closure meant the task to get it back up to standard was mammoth.
“The cleaning job alone to get the rooms back up to scratch was enormous. There were also significant technology challenges to overcome too, including getting the electronic room keys to work, point of sale equipment upgrades and internet difficulties to fix,” he explains.
“And recruiting and training a new front desk and housekeeping team during a time when there were still extensive hospitality staff shortages was an additional challenge.”
“Naturally our team is incredibly proud to have overcome all those challenges and offer guests a Perth City accommodation experience that puts all of this great city’s attractions and business partners at their doorstep.”
