Costa and Premier Inn have once again driven strong growth at Whitbread, which has reported total sales growth of 11.4% in the third quarter of the year.
The company said that Costa's revenues were up 25.2%, while Premier Inn rose 8.3%. Revpar at the hotels business increased by 3.2%, with occupancy up 0.8 percentage points to 80.3%.
Costa saw franchise sales climb 18.3% to £246m in the quarter, while like-for-like sales in UK equity stores were up 5.6%. There are now 579 Costa Express units in the country, and Costa is continuing to rebrand the remaining 498 Coffee Nation units.
Meanwhile, restaurants which include Brewers Fayre and Beefeater, delivered total covers growth of 2.6%.
Despite the positive figures, chief executive Andy Harrison warned that trading month by month continued to be variable in a "challenging consumer environment". He added: "Within the total hotel market, industry data shows that revpar growth in London and the provinces has virtually disappeared, with the London market showing broadly flat revpar and the provinces a marginal decline over the past six weeks."
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By Neil Gerrard
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