Whitbread sees its hotel demand slow
WHITBREAD has revealed a slowdown in fourth quarter sales at Premier Inn, the budget hotel chain, as consumers remained under pressure and demand for hotel rooms outside of the capital softened.
The UK’s largest hotel and restaurant owner said like-for-like sales at Premier Inn fell 0.9 per cent in the 11 weeks to 16 February, compared with a 2.6 per cent rise in the third quarter.
Chief executive Andrew Harrison said consumers “are still under heavy financial pressure, with falling disposable incomes”.
Harrison said the group was outperforming the market in the regions where revenue per room (revpar) – an industry measure – is estimated to have fallen around three per cent in the quarter.
Sales at Costa Coffee, however, jumped by 6.2 per cent, from 3.8 per cent in the previous quarter. Overall, the company, which also owns the Beefeater and Brewers Fayre pub restaurant chains, said sales rose 1.8 per cent, down from 2.4 per cent in the third quarter.
Harrison said that with 10,000 rooms in its committed pipeline the company was on track to have 65,000 Premier Inn rooms by 2016, raising its market share to 10 per cent from seven per cent. The group also plans to double global sales at Costa by 2015-16.