The new sites, on St Swithin’s Lane near Bank and Quaker Street in Shoreditch, take the total number of secured Hub by Premier Inn hotels to nine – of which seven are in central London and two are in Edinburgh.
“Premier Inn is powering forward with strong growth and market-leading occupancy levels,” said Mark Anderson, the managing director of commercial and property at Whitbread Hotels & Restaurants.
“To help us get to our overall growth target of 75,000 Premier Inn bedrooms by 2018, we’re adding new sites for both our established Premier Inn and our brand new ‘hub by Premier Inn’ formats.
“These two new ‘hub by Premier Inn’ sites represent two more excellent locations – ideal for customers who want even better value accommodation in the City of London.”
Price, location, design
St Swithin’s Lane will be a 66-bedroom Hub by Premier Inn’ and will be a part-conversion / part-new build development. Meanwhile, Shoreditch will have approximately 300 bedrooms and will be a new-build with a retained facade.
Hub by Premier Inn aims to appeal to customers ‘who value price, location and design over space’. Rooms are just 11.4 sq.m, with an en-suite shower, 40-inch TV and free Wi-Fi.
The first’ hub by Premier Inn’ is scheduled to open this autumn on St Martin’s Lane, WC2 in the heart of London’s West End. Other confirmed locations in London include Spitalfields, King’s Cross and the Tower of London, as well sites at Rose Street and Caltongate in Edinburgh. There are now more than 1,700 hub rooms in the secured development pipeline.
Premier Inn footprint
The announcement comes less than two weeks after Whitbread revealed total sales were up 14 per cent in the fourth quarter of the year.
The hospitality operator acquired a record 1.6 million sq.ft of hotel and restaurant space across 48 new hotels during its financial year ending Feb 2014, which included space for 5,020 new bedrooms across 48 new hotels, with 2,000 of the new bedrooms within the M25.
Today, it has also announced planning permissions for two new sites including Farnham, Hampshire and Malvern, Worcestershire, kick starting its 2014 expansion of its secured development pipeline.
Together, these two sites will add an additional 126 new bedrooms to Premier Inn’s secured development pipeline which now stands at more than 10,500 bedrooms.