A NEW £8 million aparthotel in the centre of Glasgow is a vote of confidence in multiple strands of the hospitality sector and helps reinforce the city’s attraction as a corporate and leisure destination.

The aparthotel – an enterprise between Di Maggio’s Restaurant Group (DRG) and operator Native of London – comes at a time when the Glasgow hospitality trade is being bolstered by the growth in conference-hosting and corporate accommodation, and the city is responding to modern tourism opportunities.

A single event at the Scottish Event Campus (SEC)-owned SSE Hydro can bring thousands of visitors, and all in with its big concert crowds it attracted 900,000 last year.

SEC has announced its plans for a £150 million expansion to its conference centre and exhibition space, and banking giant Barclays has brought to the table its plans to create up to 2,500 jobs in the kind of move that has the sense of a groundswell at its back - it is a boost for the country’s financial sector but also the city’s service industry.

Examples of the hospitality sector's response to this kind of growth include a new Radisson RED Glasgow hotel next door to the SSE Hydro, while the new owners of the Brunswick Hotel in Merchant City are investing in a major refurbishment.

However, aparthotels are also becoming a focus for the leisure market through an unlikely route.

Native says that many of its leisure industry customers - 30 per cent of all its guests - are “thanks in large part to the popularity of home-stay sites” like Airbnb.