Whitbread’s total sales grew by 1% in the third quarter, despite challenging UK market conditions.
Total UK sales grew by 0.3% for the 13-week period ended 28 November 2019 – a marginal improvement on its year-to-date run rate, the business said.
However, revenue per available room fell 4.4% in Q3 to £50.23, while UK regional accommodation sales declined by 2% and total UK accommodation sales fell 0.4%.
Alison Brittain, Whitbread’s chief executive, said: “We now have over 80,000 rooms in the UK and internationally, operating under the Premier Inn brand, with a committed pipeline of over 20,000 additional rooms. We also continue to achieve strong results from our efficiency programme, which is helping to partially offset high industry cost inflation and means we are on track to achieve our full-year expectations for FY20.”
Brittain added: “Despite the short-term economic uncertainty, there remain significant long-term opportunities for Premier Inn in both the UK and Germany.”
For the 2021 financial year, the business expects German losses to improve to around £10m as the pipeline accelerates and around 20 hotels are opened.
Brittain said: “We are pleased with the performance of all three hotels we have opened to-date, in Frankfurt, Hamburg and Munich, and continue to extend the total committed pipeline in Germany.
“The open plus committed pipeline now stands at around 8,500 rooms across 48 hotels, including 22 hotels from the Foremost Hospitality and Acomhotels acquisitions. We will be opening around 20 hotels through the course of 2020.”
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