Hotel Ibis flying north

The 200-room Hotel Ibis Wellington, which opened in May, has been developed from the former National Mutual building in Featherston St as the first in a chain of economy-class hotels.

Another Ibis will open later this year in the Auckland suburb of Ellerslie.

It will be part of a combined Novotel and Ibis hotel venture to serve the city's rapidly developing commercial and exhibition precinct.

The Wellington Ibis is the seventh in New Zealand.

The others are in Auckland, Rotorua, Wellington, Queenstown, and Hamilton. The Wellington room rate will be $99 plus GST.