Whitbread to open six new Premier Inns in London

Whitbread, the UK's largest hotel and restaurant group, has unveiled an expansion plan for its Premier Inn brand that will see six hotels opened in London over the next three years. The hotels will comprise a total of 1,200 rooms and investment will be £ 100 mln (EUR 125.5 mln).

The expansion will be carried out through the acquisition of three hotels and the development of three new-build hotels in the Greater London area. Whitbread’s acquisition of the Quality Hotel (Westminster), Comfort Inn (Kensington) and Purple Hotel (City of London) from the Real Hotel Company PLC (RHC) for £ 18.5 mln (EUR 23.2 mln) in cash accounts for 400 new rooms. Converting the acquired hotels to Premier Inns will cost an additional £ 12 mln (EUR 15 mln). A £ 70 mln (EUR 87.8 mln) investment will go into the three builds located at Waterloo, Ealing and Old Street in the City. The new builds are expected to open by 2011. This expansion will increase Premier Inns leading room total in London to 6,500, with a pipeline of 2,000 rooms projected to be announced over the following 12 months.

Alan Parker, CEO of Whitbread, commented: ‘We have exciting expansion plans for Premier Inn in London and today’s addition of 1,200 rooms is a great start. The capital is an important focus for Premier Inn, and there is an increasing need for high quality, affordable accommodation. Our further pipeline will position us as the largest hotel chain in London with at least 8,500 rooms before the Olympics in 2012.’