Premier Inn on course for three million sq.ft of new hotel space for 2012

With a secured pipeline currently standing at more than 11,000 rooms, Premier Inn’s new hotels and secured space are a combination of freehold and leasehold deals. All are part of the Whitbread-owned chain’s aggressive expansion strategy to grow its portfolio of more than 49,000 bedrooms across 630 hotels to 65,000 bedrooms by 2016.

“We’ve invested great care and attention in developing a product which is right for all of our Premier Inn customers as well as for our property partners,” said Mark Anderson, commercial & property director for Whitbread Hotels & Restaurants.

“We’re finding that development partners appreciate what Premier Inn can contribute to new schemes in terms of investment and footfall and want to do business with a firm offering commercial terms and backed by the security of a Whitbread covenant. 

“Passing one million square feet in four months is testimony to the quality of our offer and shows we have what it takes to hit our three million square feet for the year target and move ever closer to trading 65,000 bedrooms by 2016.”

Already this year, new hotels and extensions totalling more than 530,000 sq ft have been opened. 

The recently opened hotels are in: -

• Ealing (165 bedrooms)
• Leicester Square (83 bedrooms)
• Richmond (93 bedrooms)
• Southwark Tate Modern (122 bedrooms)
• Ayr (84 bedrooms)
• Camberley (95 bedrooms)
• Edinburgh Princes Street (97 bedrooms)
• High Wycombe (120 bedrooms)
• Kidderminster (56 bedrooms)
• Leeds city centre (131 bedrooms)
• Paignton (61 bedrooms)
• Stansted Airport (303 bedrooms)

In addition, 470,000 sq ft of development space for new hotels has been secured into Premier Inn’s pipeline.

Premier Inn hotels in the pipeline: -

• Archway in London (161 bedrooms)
• Barrow-in-Furness (62 bedrooms with a Beefeater Grill)
• Colchester (85 bedrooms)
• Dudley (63 bedrooms)
• Eastbourne (65 bedrooms)
• Fleet (70 bedrooms)
• Glasgow (180 bedrooms)
• Lewisham (60 bedrooms)
• Malvern (66 bedrooms)
• Sunderland (125 bedrooms)
• Telford (85 bedrooms)
• Trowbridge (80 bedrooms)
• Witney (60 bedrooms)
• Worcester County Cricket Club (120 bedrooms)

In 2011, Premier Inn also introduced a new format hotel with standard sized Premier Inn bedrooms but a streamlined food and beverage offer.  The introduction of this ‘smaller format’ is helping to unlock even more sites and ensure that Premier Inn can get into the 300+ target towns listed on its national network plan. 

Recent examples of the smaller format hotels include Leicester Square (where Premier Inn has just opened at a site on the north side of the square ) and Kidderminster (where Premier Inn is taking space above retail units in a major mixed-use regeneration scheme for the town).