Travelodge starts work on six new hotels
The development projects represent a £41.5m investment and will create 500 new jobs including 95 Travelodge hotel team member positions. All of the new properties will incorporate the brand’s new room design which is being rolled out across the estate.
“We are very excited to be starting on site to build six hotels today in prime locations across the UK,” said Travelodge’s managing director for property Paul Harvey. “They will be a great addition to the Travelodge portfolio and offer consumers more choice for good value accommodation.
“The six hotels are scheduled to open throughout next year and we are hopeful that our Glasgow hotel - which is our largest hotel in the city - will be ready for the Commonwealth Games.”
London's biggest hotelier
The Glasgow development is the largest of the six, with a 171-bedroom hotel scheduled to open on Queen’s Street in the city centre in time for the Games which kick off in July 2014.
The office conversion of the former Charlotte House building is being overseen by contractor Anglo Holt and has been funded by the Business Premises Reservation Fund, representing a total investment of £12m.
Two of the five other new hotels are in London. A 104-bedroom hotel in Greenwich is the result of an £8.3m investment, opening next September; and an 86-room property will open in Raynes Park Village around the same time.
Greenwich and Raynes Park Travelodge hotels will ensure the company maintains its title as ‘London’s biggest hotelier’ with 62 hotels.
Brand refresh
Meanwhile, Travelodge will be opening its second hotel in Southampton with a £5.5m development of a converted office block scheduled to open in July 2014. And a 93-room property will open in Winnersch, Berkshire, next December after a £6.5m investment.
Travelodge will also be opening its second hotel on the Isle of Wight, with a 41-bedroom property opening in Ryde next April as a result of a £2.3m investment deal struck with Barclays Bank.
Andy Elwell, managing director of Anglo Holt – which is the contractor for four of the new properties that are being constructed - said: "Anglo Holt has worked with Travelodge for over a decade now and during this time we have built 64 hotels for the company across the UK.
“We are delighted to be starting on-site to help build four more Travelodge hotels today and be creating lots of new jobs in local communities for bricklayers, plumbers and electricians.”
Travelodge now operates over 500 hotels and 37,000 rooms across the UK, Ireland and Spain. A £223 million brand refresh programme, which the company launched in March to ‘grow business and strengthen the product offering’, has so far affected 153 hotels, with 13,331 rooms refitted.
