Whitbread has launched a “no-frills” hotel concept called Zip, which halves its standard Premier Inn room size to 91.5 sq ft (8.5 sq m) rooms.
The first Zip by Premier Inn hotel will open with 138 bedrooms in the Roath district of Cardiff in early 2019.
The rooms will be priced from £19. The hotels will be located on the outskirts of major towns and cities.
PriestmanGoode, which designs first-class cabins for airlines including Air France, Lufthansa and Swiss, designed the spaces.
These will also feature lightboxes, flexible bed formats and en suite shower rooms.
Whitbread said the compact room format would grant access to “a broader range of buildings in towns and cities across the UK and provide a great accommodation offer for the ultra-price-sensitive customer”.
It has already secured a second site in Southampton with 140 bedrooms, and is actively seeking further acquisitions in out-of-centre locations.
Alison Brittain, chief executive of Whitbread, said: “There is a niche in an under-served market for Zip.”
She said: “It offers us an exciting new platform for growth and will give us access to a broader customer base, attracting those guests who are on a particularly tight budget but still expect and deserve the basics done brilliantly.”
All standard Zip rooms will include:
- Twin single beds with Hypnos mattresses which can be pushed together to create a double bed
- Private bathroom with power shower
- Free Wi-Fi
- 24-inch television
- Air conditioning
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