Business | Tourism
Travelodge plans to boost UK seaside holiday market
Travelodge, which has 30 seaside properties at present, is opening one coastal location a month and will launch in Blackpool, Weymouth, Newquay, Bournemouth and Scarborough in the next 12 months.
- Financial Times
- Published: 00:03 July 23, 2008
Travelodge is throwing its weight behind the British seaside holiday market by investing £150 million in 55 new budget hotels around the UK coast which it says will be operational by 2015.
The no-frills hotel group, which has 30 seaside properties at present, is opening one coastal location a month and will launch in Blackpool, Weymouth, Newquay, Bournemouth and Scarborough in the next 12 months.
Grant Hearn, chief executive, said the economic downturn and the rising cost of travelling abroad meant now was the time for the British holiday market to win back British holidaymakers from the budget airlines.
"Soaring air fares, an overpowering euro and the credit crunch are changing holiday habits this summer and maybe for good," he said.
Travelodge, owned privately by Dubai International Capital, has traditionally focused on heavily populated towns and city centres, with London and the home countries a key market.
It has about 340 hotels, containing 24,000 rooms, and is aiming for up to 1,000 hotels, or 70,000 rooms, by 2020.
Travelodge said after its seaside locations enjoyed strong like-for-like growth in 2007, it was predicting revenue at its coastal hotels would rise 30 per cent in July and August.
The new investment will create 1,000 jobs, and Travelodge is looking to reinvigorate British seasides by signing up other leisure operators such as Merlin's Sealife and Blackpool's Pleasure Beach to a programme of discounts.
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