Travelodge, the UK's fastest growing hotel company today announced the unconditional exchange of contracts on nine new hotel development sites creating 170 new jobs at an investment of £28.3 million.
The nine sites, located in tourist or business destinations across the UK, will add 568 rooms to the company's portfolio representing 12.5% of its annual room target.
Travelodge will invest £28.3 million constructing new hotels in Cheshire, Poole, Newport, Felixstowe, Devizes (Wiltshire), St Helens (Merseyside), Fort William (Scottish Highlands), Clacton and Ashbourne. All nine hotels will be trading under the Travelodge brand within the next 18 months.
Paul Harvey, Travelodge's Property Director, said, This announcement demonstrates our strong development pipeline and these new hotels will add 568 new rooms to our portfolio. We are clearly well on our way to reaching our target of 4000 new rooms by the end of the year.
"We are investing millions of pounds to enhance the UK tourism offer and with more quality, value accommodation available to domestic tourists we hope to make hotels available to more people than ever before."
Travelodge intends to treble the size of its estate by 2020, targeting a 10% share of the UK hotel market. In 2008 the hotel chain will open 44 new hotels and locations include: Wakefield, Blackpool, Carlisle, London Euston, London Southwark, Bracknell, Cardiff, Uxbridge, Glasgow, Hereford, Lowestoft, Torquay and Stratford on Avon.
Travelodge served over six million customers in 2007 and encouraged 500,000 more low income families to its hotels than ever before.
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Further information contact:
Shula Gillam, Senior PR Executive
01844 358703
Notes to editors:
Details on the eight sites-
Location: Devizes
Number of Rooms: 53
Jobs Created: 15
Investment (MMillion): 2.6
Location: St Helens
Number of rooms: 64
Jobs Created: 20
Investment (Million): 3.2
Location: Fort William
Number of Rooms: 60
Jobs Created: 20
Investment (Million): 3
Location: Cheshire
Number of Rooms: 77
Jobs Created: 25
Investment (Million): 3.8
Location: Poole
Number of Rooms: 92
Jobs Created: 25
Investment (Million): 4.6
Location: Newport
Number of Rooms: 60
Jobs Created: 20
Investment (Million): 3
Location: Felixstowe
Number of Rooms: 54
Jobs Created: 15
Investment (Million): 2.7
Location: Ashbourne
Number of Rooms: 51
Jobs Created: 15
Investment (Million): 2.5
Location: Clacton
Number of Rooms: 57
Jobs Created: 15
Investment (Million): 2.8
About Travelodge
The first budget hotel brand to launch in the UK in 1985, Travelodge now operates 331 hotels (over 22,500 rooms) - nine in Ireland, three in Spain and the rest in the UK. Travelodge plans to grow its estate to 70,000 rooms (approximately 1000 hotels) by 2020 and aims to be the biggest operator in London by the 2012 Olympics with over 7,000 rooms in the capital.
Six and a half million people stayed with Travelodge last year and 83% of reservations are currently made online at travelodge.co.uk where room prices start from £19 per room, per night. The chain employs 5,000 staff and is owned by Dubai International Capital, who acquired the organisation from Permira in 2006. In April 2007, Travelodge announced the first stage of a new online retail strategy when it became the first UK hotel company to launch a Travel Insurance product.
Melvin Gold report:
A UK budget hotel will be built, opened or converted every three working days for the next 20 years. The budget hotel sector is set to treble by 2027, growing up to ten times faster than the rest of the hotel industry.
With the total hotel market forecasted to continue to grow at around one percent in each year for the next two decades, the budget sector - growing at 10% for the next five years and 5% for the following five years - will be the primary growth driver of the accommodation market. The budget sector is expected to grow to 225,400 rooms representing 26.8% of the market by 2027.
The study recorded the current total number of accommodation rooms in the UK at 716,500, with the budget sector currently accounting for 85,665 (12% of market).