Premier Inn, the UK’s largest hotel business, is readying itself for summer with five new seaside locations set to open this spring / summer. Together the hotels add 545 bedrooms to Premier Inn’s expanding network in popular coastal and leisure locations across the UK.
A new 100-bed Premier Inn at Sandown Seafront on the Isle of Wight (pictured) kicks off the run of seaside openings from this Friday (26 February), with new Premier Inn hotels at Scarborough, Bournemouth, Blackpool, and Thurso opening their doors in a phased way during spring and early summer.
The new openings, which are a mixture of freehold and leasehold developments, continue the strategic expansion of Premier Inn into popular leisure and seaside locations across the country where the business has been working hard to grow its presence in recent years.
Alex Flach, UK Development Director at Whitbread, said, “Nearly half of all Premier Inn customers stay with us on leisure breaks every year. Our leisure guests are a crucial part of our business and we have been steadily expanding our network in popular leisure and seaside locations to meet existing demand from our guests and caterer for the growing trend for UK breaks and staycations.
“The five new Premier Inn hotels we are opening at coastal locations this spring / summer are part of our ongoing strategy of investing in high-quality locations where we are confident of strong, long-term demand for our affordable bedrooms. They mark the start of a busy year for new Premier Inn hotel openings and we are continuing to seek new acquisition opportunities to grow and improve our network in select locations across the UK and Ireland.”
In total, the five new hotels are expected to create approximately 130 new jobs when fully occupied, with recruitment focused in the immediate area around the hotels.
Whitbread, Premier Inn’s parent company, is continuing to grow and innovate its hotel business in the UK, Ireland and Germany where it has a combined network of more than 90,000 Premier Inn and hub by Premier Inn bedrooms open and in its secured development pipeline.
The five new seaside and coastal and seaside locations opening across the UK are:
Premier Inn Sandown Seafront, Isle of Wight – 100 bedrooms and Cookhouse & Pub
Premier Inn Scarborough North Bay – 105 bedrooms
Premier Inn Bournemouth West Cliff – 105 bedrooms
Premier Inn Blackpool North Pier – 150 bedrooms and Cookhouse & Pub restaurant
Premier Inn Thurso – 85 bedrooms and the most northerly Premier Inn in the UK on opening