voco Belfast

IHG's voco brand made its Irish debut in July 2024 inside a familiar Belfast address: the former Radisson Blu Hotel in the Gasworks district, bought and refurbished by Cork operator Cliste Hospitality (iNua Collection) for a reported £3.6 million. The 120-room hotel keeps its riverside site and event-space scale, with a ground-floor refresh by O'Donnell O'Neill Design and a new Italian-leaning restaurant and bar, Pomo, replacing the previous operator's offer.

The place

voco Belfast sits in the Gasworks, the mixed-use redevelopment built on Belfast's former gasworks site on the south bank of the River Lagan, at 3 Cromac Place, off the Ormeau Road (BT7 2JB). The scheme mixes offices and apartments around a landscaped water feature that the hotel's restaurant overlooks, and Belfast city centre is roughly a ten-minute walk north, putting the hotel within reach of the Titanic Quarter and the SSE Arena without sitting inside the denser Cathedral Quarter tourist core.

The concept

The building has traded as a hotel since September 2004, when it opened as the Radisson Blu Hotel Belfast under a 20-year management agreement. As that agreement approached its 2024 expiry, Cork-based operator Cliste Hospitality, part of the iNua Collection, bought the roughly 60,000 sq ft property in November 2023 as its first Northern Ireland investment and put it through a reported £3.6 million refurbishment before reopening it in July 2024 as voco Belfast — the voco brand's first hotel on the island of Ireland. IHG's voco is pitched as an independent-feeling upscale flag within a global chain, and the ground-floor overhaul, designed by O'Donnell O'Neill Design, follows that brief: warm base tones set against bespoke carpets, commissioned art and textured tiling. The 120 guest rooms were refreshed more plainly, with plush bedding, smart TVs and work desks rather than any strong decorative statement.

Dining & wellness

Food and drink run through Pomo, the ground-floor Italian-leaning restaurant and bar overlooking the Gasworks' water feature, serving a menu built around local produce alongside a deli-style breakfast, plus an outdoor terrace that extends the same space in fine weather. The hotel also carries six meeting rooms with a stated capacity of around 300 delegates and co-working lounges, aiming as much at Belfast's conference trade as at leisure guests; no spa, gym or pool is listed among its facilities.