Premier Inn invests £35m in high-tech Edinburgh hotels

Hub is the only hotel in the world that allows guests to use their Apple Watch to book, check-in, customise their room and control the hotel's Smart TV’s.

The high-tech 121-room hotel will open in Edinburgh’s historic Old Town at the end of March, along with an adjacent 127-room Premier Inn.

A third 127-room Premier Inn hotel will open in Edinburgh’s New Town in late Spring, bringing the brand’s total number of hotels in the city to 14 with over 1500 rooms.

The hotels will create 150 jobs and 10 apprenticeships, with half of the full and part-time positions going to the long-term unemployed and those aged between 16-24.

Simon Ewins, chief operating officer for Premier Inn and hub, said:  “hub is a new concept for us which we are really excited about, especially as this is the first one in Scotland and outside of London. We are confident our guests visiting the beautiful city of Edinburgh will enjoy this new digital experience and we will look to open more in Scotland in the future.”

The hotel group is also investing £1.8m in extending the Premier Inn Newcraighall and £1.2m in refurbishing its Edinburgh Central site, following the successful opening of its £7m hotel in St Andrews in October 2015. 

This will expand Premier Inn’s portfolio in Scotland to 68 hotels as part of the company’s ongoing expansion plan to grow its number of UK rooms to 85,000 by 2020.

Clive Wilding, project director for New Waverley said: “The opening of the two hotels at New Waverley marks an exciting turning point for the regeneration of this historic part of Edinburgh’s Old Town.

“It’s been a great working partnership with Whitbread, and together we are at last breathing new life into what has been a neglected part of Edinburgh’s historic city centre.”