Premier Inn is launching a new hotel concept incorporating cheaper compact rooms in city centre locations.

“Hub by Premier Inn” promises its customers the most high-tech and space-efficient rooms currently available in the UK.

The first hotel is due to open on St Martin’s Lane in Covent Garden in autumn 2014. Three more central London properties will follow in 2015 and another in 2016.

Hub by Premier Inn

Rooms will be up to 30 per cent cheaper than a comparable Premier Inn in central London, at under £100 a night mid-week. Starting and off peak prices will be less.

Each room will measure just 11.4 sqm and will come with an en suite bathroom with power shower, wardrobe, desk and a 40-inch smart screen television. Wifi is free.

Hub by Premier Inn will be the UK’s first hotel chain where the rooms can be remote controlled using a smart phone app. Guests will be able to check in online and then control the room’s lighting, temperature and even what is on the TV or radio using their phone.

Each hotel will have its own deli-style restaurant serving local produce and guests will be able to pre-order breakfast using the Hub app.

Hub by Premier Inn

Patrick Dempsey, managing director of hotel group Whitbread, which owns Premier Inn, said: “Hub is all about giving customers more choice. It will provide great quality, contemporary room design in the heart of a major city at an outstanding price.

“With space at a premium, each aspect of the design has been aimed at optimising every single centimeter of space from the desk that folds up and disappears into the bed to a convenient under the bed space for luggage.”

Hub by Premier Inn has been trialled since last June at the Premier Inn King’s Cross, where five prototype rooms were created with 1,825 guests having stayed in them to date.

As well as the 167-bed St Martin’s Lane branch, which is due to open in autumn 2014, the brand will open London properties in Goodge Street, Great Tower Street and Spitalfields in early 2015, and in Kings Cross the following year.

The new brand will eventually target other major city centres across the UK. Whitbread has plans for around 40 Hub by Premier Inn hotels opened or in the pipeline by 2018.

premierinn.com