Whitbread, the UK’s largest hospitality business, added eleven new and extended hotels to its national network during its 2022/23 financial year which closed on 2 March 2023.
Together, the Group added more than 1,500 new Premier Inn and hub by Premier Inn bedrooms to its growing network of affordable hotels across the UK and Ireland in the year.
The opening of the hub by Premier Inn Clerkenwell hotel (pictured) in central London closed Whitbread’s financial year in style, bringing 180 ‘compact’ hub by Premier Inn bedrooms into the heart of one of London’s most creative districts.
Other significant new hotel openings during the financial year included:
- The tallest Premier Inn in the UK at Canary Wharf (Westferry) in London which stands at 28-storeys and offers 400 guest bedrooms;
- The first Premier Inn to open in the Lake District National Park at Keswick, Cumbria;
- A 393-bedroom Premier Inn at Paddington Basin in Central London, the first of three major new hotels to open in the Paddington catchment in the capital;
- The second Premier Inn hotel to open in St Helier, Jersey;
- The first Premier Inn to open with a new format Brewers Fayre restaurant at Milton Keynes (Willen Lake)
The new hotels were delivered through a mixture of Whitbread-led freehold developments –as in the case of the hub by Premier Inn Clerkenwell hotel – and leasehold hotels built in partnership with Whitbread’s development partners.
Alex Flach, UK Development Director for Whitbread, said, “The openings show how active we continue to be having identified an increased market potential from 100,000 to 125,000 Premier Inn and hub by Premier Inn bedrooms in the UK and Ireland.
'They also clearly demonstrate the strength of our design and construction capabilities, often in sensitive and constrained locations.
' We completed some highly complex developments during the last financial year, growing our estate in popular, sought-after locations, and all these learnings will be fed into the next generation of locations for Premier Inn and hub across the UK and Ireland.”
More than 500 new jobs were created by Whitbread at the new and extended hotels and restaurants during the 2022/23 financial year. The company currently employs more than 35,000 people in the UK and Ireland across its network of 840+ hotels.
As it expands, Whitbread is currently looking to secure new Premier Inn and hub by Premier Inn hotels in more than 160 locations across the UK and Ireland. More information on Whitbread’s property requirements and how to contact its property acquisition team can be found at