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Travelodge opens 500th hotel at London Stratford

1 Mar 2012 by BusinessTraveller

Travelodge has today opened its 500th hotel, a 188-room property in London’s Stratford.

Located on Stratford High Street, the new-build is in walking distance of the Olympic Stadium, which Travelodge chief executive Guy Parsons told Business Traveller could be seen from some of the rooms.

The property also features the brand’s signature bar-café, found in many of its new-build city-centre properties.

The opening comes less than two years after the budget chain opened its 400th property in Waterloo. It brings Travelodge’s London tally to 47.

The company also announced plans to open 184 more hotels across the capital by 2025. Parsons said the plan was to exceed 1,000 hotels across the country in the same period.

He added that it was primarily the value for money offered by budget hotels that was driving the sector’s growth. “If people book with us in advance they can stay from £19,” he said. “We’re never going to be an experiential brand – people stay because it enables them to do something else.

“But if you look at what you can get here for the money and you know it’s going to be of good quality, that it’s going to be looked after, the staff know what they’re doing, it’s clean, comfortable and well maintained, then why would people not stay in a budget hotel if what they basically need is a good bed for the night?”

Travelodge has also just opened a hotel in Greenwich, with one at Excel exhibition centre due to follow before the Olympics.

Last week it opened the 141-room Liverpool Central the Strand opposite Albert Dock. Another will follow on Liverpool’s Exchange Street later this year. Edinburgh is to get two more properties in 2012.

“Over the past eight months we’ve opened three hotels right in Manchester, another at Birmingham airport, and one near the Bullring in Birmingham,” Parsons said. “We’ve also just reopened the hotel at Gatwick North Terminal that we took over from Mercure.”

Travelodge is due to boost its small Spanish portfolio with city-centre properties in Barcelona and Madrid next year.

He reported that some 35 per cent of Travelodge’s customers were currently business travellers and that he would like to increase that figure by between 5 and 10 per cent in the next couple of years. That would be done by driving corporate sales rather than making changes to its product and services, he said.

Visit travelodge.co.uk for more information.

Report by Michelle Mannion

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