The Golden Tulip Hotel and the Tulip Inn Antwerp were bought for 16m. Both hotels will remain branded as Golden Tulip Hotels for the moment.

These are the first hotels to be acquired by the Prem Group outside of the UK and Ireland and are part of the group's European expansion programme. The group anticipates further acquisitions in 2007 in other major European cities including Berlin, Hamburg and Amsterdam and plans to invest 100m.

The Golden Tulip is a fourstar hotel located in Antwerp's famous diamond district. The Tulip Inn is a 66-bed three-star hotel located in the heart of the city, close to the train station and the diamond district.

The acquisition of these hotels brings to 12 the number of hotels the group has opened this year. An additional 200-bed four-star hotel is planned for Antwerp in December 2006, and in March 2007 Prem is expected to announce another 150bed hotel acquisition in Belgium.

"Prem Group has expanded at an unprecedented rate in Ireland and the UK and so the natural progression from this is to look at other markets close to home such as Belgium, Holland and Germany, " says group managing director, Jim Murphy. "The acquisitions in Antwerp provide us with a base to drive forward our European expansion plans and we are currently looking into opportunities in Germany and Holland as well as other major cities in Belgium."