Crowne Plaza Hobart

Crowne Plaza Hobart opened on July 1, 2020, a day after IHG announced it, on Liverpool Street in the centre of Hobart. It is the first Crowne Plaza in Tasmania and the first in Australia to have a Club Lounge. The 235 rooms all look either over the harbour or towards Mount Wellington. The opening had been planned for March 2020 and slipped because of the pandemic. It went ahead while Tasmania's borders were still closed to most visitors, so the first guests were local.

The place

The hotel stands at 110 Liverpool Street, in the grid of central Hobart rather than on the waterfront itself, which is why the harbour views come from height. The owner is Kalis Hotel Group, a locally owned company, and the building was put up from scratch: no existing structure was converted.

The views split the hotel in two. Rooms on one side face the working harbour and the water, rooms on the other face kunanyi/Mount Wellington, the mountain that closes off the city to the west.

The concept

The interiors take their palette from the surroundings. Cool blues, silvers and greys stand for the harbour, warmer reds and browns for the mountain, and timber accents refer to Tasmania's forestry history. In the lobby, the hotel shows work by Tasmanian artists, including pieces from Handmark Gallery by Melissa Smith, Jonathan Patridge and Luisa Romeo.

The Club Lounge was presented at opening as the first in any Australian Crowne Plaza. IHG says its design follows a residential idea, with custom furniture rather than standard hotel lounge seating. Access includes complimentary canapes and drinks in the evening, and a current package also adds breakfast and all-day tea and coffee.

In the rooms, lighting and other settings run from a touch pad, and the bathroom amenities were chosen for their sustainability credentials. The owner and IHG gave the hotel a contemporary, design-led brief within the Crowne Plaza range, the group's upper-upscale tier.

Dining & wellness

There are two food and drink venues: a main restaurant and bar, and THE DECK, an outdoor deck and bar looking over the city. At launch both were run by executive chef John Churchill, a Tasmanian, with a farm-to-table approach built on small-batch local suppliers and low-waste kitchen practices. A current booking listing names a different executive chef for THE DECK, so the kitchen team has changed since 2020.

The hotel has also described a partnership with the Edible Precinct at Macquarie Point, where organic waste is dehydrated and composted to feed the rooftop gardens.