Travelodge snaps up 12 new hotels as recession bites

Budget hotel group Travelodge has snapped up 12 new hotels worth £77m, as landlords look to sell on sites as the recession hits home.

The properties boost the Travelodge estate by 1,443 rooms and will create 200 new jobs, with all entry-level staff being recruited through JobCentre Plus.

The new hotels are in Cambridge, Edinburgh, Egham, Epsom, Liverpool, Northampton, Rugby, Salford Quays and London’s Penge, Twickenham, Waterloo and Whetstone areas.

Egham Travelodge will be built above a Waitrose, while the Rugby property will be constructed on top of a Tesco, continuing Travelodge’s pioneering tie-up with supermarkets.

Paul Harvey, managing director for development at Travelodge, said: “The addition of so many sites is just the start to what will be a large number of exchanges in 2009. 

“Since the onset of the recession we have been offered more locations and going concerns than ever before, often in prime locations that just one year ago would have been unviable.”

In addition to the 12 new hotels, a further 16 hotels are under construction across the UK and will add an additional 1,560 rooms to the portfolio during the next two years.

Travelodge currently has 372 hotels in the UK, Spain and Ireland and more than 25,000 rooms, and has set itself a target of having 1,000 hotels and 70,000 rooms by 2020.

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By Gemma Sharkey

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