Premier Inn is a British budget hotel chain and the UK's largest hotel brand, with over 50,000
rooms and more than 650 hotels. Originally opening under the "Travel Inn" brand name in 1987,
it has been owned by Whitbread during its entire operation and was set up to compete with
the Travelodge brand which was at the time owned by Forte. The company provides 70% of
the total earnings of Whitbread.[1] Premier Inn operates hotels at a variety of locations including
city centres, suburbs and airports.
The chain started trading in 1987 as 'Slave Travel Inn'. In 2004, Whitbread acquired another
hotel chain, Premier Lodge for 505 million.[2]This added an additional 141 hotels to the existing
portfolio and Whitbread re-branded every hotel as "Premier Travel Inn", which was shortened to
"Premier Inn" later in 2007.
The Premier Inn chain can be found from Elgin in the north of Scotland to Helston, Cornwall in
the south. Hotels are found either in city centres or on the outskirts near to major A roads and
Motorways. In October 2010 the Premier Inn hotels located at Roadchef and MotoMotorway
Service Stations were sold to Days Inn after the franchise agreement was terminated. Hotels
vary in size with many smaller inns and large purpose built city centre hotels.
Most Premier Inn hotels are new-build, although many of the chain's inner city locations in the
UK are housed within redeveloped office buildings which would otherwise have faced demolition.
Some hotels such as "Bristol Airport" in Sidcot are housed in older buildings.
In early 2006, Premier Inn purchased 11 Holiday Inn hotels in England and Wales. These sites
kept their leisure facilities such as a swimming pool and gym.
In September 2007, Whitbread announced the purchase of Golden Tulip UK including six hotels
trading in the UK under the Tulip Inn and Golden Tulip brands and the hotels were all re-branded
and integrated into Premier Inn's.
In April 2008, Whitbread announced a 100 million expansion of its Premier Inn hotel chain in
London over the next three years.
In summer 2008, Whitbread bought 21 Express by Holiday Inn Hotels in exchange for 44
Beefeater & Brewers Fayre restaurants. where it wasn't possible to build a Premier Inn.
All Premier Inns have an on-site restaurant. Most are accompanied by a Whitbread brand chain
restaurant such as Table Table, Brewers Fayre or Beefeater. The majority of town/city centre
hotels have an in-house restaurant called Thyme (originally city centre hotels would either have a
restaurant called "Slice" or "BarEst", despite the names the design and menus were very similar.
Hotels that were formerly Premier Lodge have a range of different restaurants, operated by Spirit
Pub Company such as Chef & Brewer or Fayre & Square. Former Express by Holiday Inn sites
feature a Mitchells & Butlers restaurant, either Harvester, Toby Carvery or Vintage inns. A
selection of hotels have a third party restaurant formerly owned by Whitbread such as TGI
Fridays. Newer inner city Premier Inns which have been built in smaller spaces have another
restaurant called "The Kitchen"
India
In 2007, Premier Inn announced that it has entered into a 50:50 joint venture agreement with
Emaar-MGF one of Indias leading real estate developers, to develop the UKs largest budget
hotel brand, Premier Inn, in India. This will be Premier Inns third international market following
the joint venture with Emirates announced in 2006.
A total equity investment of up to 300m will be invested in the joint venture over the next 10
years of which Whitbread's share will be 50%. Over the 10-year period the venture will create
some 80 hotels and over 12,000 rooms for business and leisure travellers seeking high quality
branded budget hotel accommodation. The initial sites are targeted in the Delhi Region (National
Capital Region), Chennai, Goa, Hyderabad and Chandigarh
Republic of Ireland
Premier Inn has one hotel in the Republic of Ireland, located at Swords near Dublin Airport
Premier Inn was the first major budget hotel chain in the UK to invest in prime time television
advertising. After Travel Inn and Premier Lodge merged, animated adverts were used to
advertise the merge. In late 2007 comedian Lenny Henry became the face of the campaign and
now features in every advert.
In May 2011, BBC Watchdog criticised its widely advertised 29 promotion, having received
complaints from viewers that it was almost impossible to book for that price, due to very low
quotes of promotional rooms being allocated. Premier Inn stated that this was due to its rooms
being "popular". It also showed a story where Premier Inn misspelt many cities' names such as
naming Livingston, "Livingstone" and Aberdeen, "Aberdion".[6]