Harry Aikines-Aryeetey, Team GB sprinter, celebrates the launch of the 700th Premier Inn hotel
Whitbread has opened its 700th Premier Inn in the UK, taking the fast-growing hotel brand through another major milestone and a step closer to 85,000 bedrooms by 2020 (up from approximately 59,000 bedrooms today).
The new £12 million, 160 bedroom hotel in Kingston-upon-Thames (Wheatfield Way, KT1) is the latest opening from a strong development pipeline which currently stands at over 12,500 bedrooms.
Seeking new sites
Premier Inn continues to actively seek new sites and, also this week, confirmed its latest acquisition for the former City & Guild Group’s headquarters building in West Smithfield, London, EC1 for £54m and intended conversion to a 272 bedroom Premier Inn hotel (subject to planning permission).
In its April 2015 financial results, Whitbread committed £700m of capex to fuel organic growth across Premier Inn, Costa and its restaurant brands.
Jo Moon, Director of Acquisitions for Premier Inn, said: “Premier Inn is a property success story as well as a hugely successful and much loved consumer brand. We have consistently added in the region of 4,500 new bedrooms into our development pipeline for each of the last five years. With considerable financial backing and an outstanding property proposition, we are actively looking for excellent new sites in London and nationwide to take us towards 85,000 bedrooms by 2020.”
Harry Aikines-Aryeetey (left) and Simon Jones (right), Managing Director of Premier Inn UK & hub by Premier Inn, cut the ribbon to mark the opening of the 700th Premier Inn in the UK.
2015: 33 new hotels + launch of hub by Premier inn
In its 2014/15 financial year, Whitbread opened 33 new Premier Inn hotels equivalent to 4,360 new bedrooms.
Whitbread introduced the hub by Premier Inn brand in 2014 (the first site opened at Covent Garden / St Martin’s Lane in September 2014) and is targeting expansion of the strong-performing format as part of the total overall expansion of the Premier Inn estate to 85,000 bedrooms by 2020.
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