Travelodge currently looking at 25 other sites with major supermarket brands
Today, Travelodge, the UK’s fastest growing hotel chain has announced it’s currently developing three mixed use hotel and retail sites alongside Waitrose - one of the country’s leading supermarkets.
Representing a £27million investment, the joint hotel and supermarket developments will create 85 Travelodge jobs.
The three joint ventures are located at:
Aylesbury: Situated in the town centre, next to the recently opened, £42 million Aylesbury Theatre, Travelodge will operate an 81-room hotel and Waitrose will be opening a 37,000 sq ft supermarket. The joint venture is scheduled to open at the end of 2012.
Sidcup: Situated on Sidcup High Street, Waitrose will be operating a 10,000 sq. ft. convenience store. Travelodge will be opening an 84-room hotel. The development is scheduled to open in August 2012.
Vauxhall: Located a stone’s throw from Vauxhall Station at 1-8 Bondway, Travelodge will be opening a 154-room hotel and Waitrose will be opening a 6,000 ft convenience store. The two companies expect to open in November 2012.
In addition to these three sites currently being developed alongside Waitrose, Travelodge is also developing and is in close negotiations on a further 25 co-partnership development deals with a number of large supermarket companies across the UK.
This co-development programme represents a £130 million investment and will create around 520 new Travelodge jobs.
Travelodge has fuelled its growth plans and accelerated it new opening’s programme by capitalising on the UK’s supermarkets expansion programme - to open more ‘Metro’ style stores across the country.
For example:
In August 2011, Asda announced it’s looking for 250 new smaller supermarkets following the absorption of Netto (1)
• Sainsbury’s announced they are looking for 100 new local convenience stores every year (2)
• Tesco’s announced they are opening 150 Express stores in 2010/11 and are continuing to grow (3)
• Morrisons announced they are rolling out their M: local convenience store brand (4)
• Waitrose announced they are looking to open a further 300 convenience stores (5)
• Aldi announced (whose stores are smaller than the other supermarkets) are seeking to open a further 50 new sites a year (6)
So far this year, Travelodge has opened a site with Tesco (London Cricklewood) and Morrisons (Manchester Salford Quays).
Guy Parsons, Travelodge CEO said: “We are very excited to be co-developing with Waitrose, one of the UK’s leading supermarket brands. Having a Travelodge and Waitrose on site offers an attractive proposition for consumers, developers and investors.
“We have an aggressive growth strategy in place and our aim is to have 1,100 hotels by 2025. To fuel our development programme we have capitalised on the UK’s supermarkets expansion plans; by co-developing a hotel on top of a Metro style store. We are currently developing or in talks with virtually every supermarket brand in Britain. “
“The reason we work so well with supermarkets from a development perspective is the ease in which a hotel and ground-floor supermarket can be built. They are also able to attract finance relatively easily, even in this difficult environment.
In the run up to Christmas, Travelodge is opening seven hotels and creating 151 jobs. Hotels are opening at the following locations: Birmingham, Bolton, Doncaster, Portishead, High Wycombe, Kidderminster and London Twickenham
ENDS
Notes to Editors:
Listed below are supporting links which give further information on the supermarkets expansion plans.
(1) http://www.racplus.com/news/asda-guns-to-open-250-smaller-supermarkets/8...
(2) http://www.globalcstorefocus.com/1006/3.html
(3) http://ar2011.tescoplc.com/business-review/growing-the-uk-core.html
(4) http://www.morrisons.co.uk/Corporate/Media-centre/Corporate-news/Morriso...
(5) http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/sep/24/waitrose-convenience-stor...
(6) http://www.racplus.com/intelligence/retailers/aldi/aldi-corporate-strate...
About Travelodge:
The first budget hotel brand to launch in the UK in 1985, Travelodge now operates over 490 hotels and over 35,000 rooms across the UK, Ireland (11) and Spain (4). Travelodge plans to grow its estate to 1,100 hotels and 100,000 rooms by 2025. Over 13 million people stayed with Travelodge last year and 90% of reservations are currently made online at www.travelodge.co.uk, where room rates start at £19 per night. The chain employs over 6,000 staff.