Budget hotel chain Travelodge has paid more than £20m for nine new hotel development sites as part of its bid to add 4,000 new rooms by the end of the year.

The nine UK sites will add 568 rooms to the company’s portfolio and represents 12.5% of its annual room target.

Travelodge will construct the hotels in Cheshire, Poole, Newport, Felixstowe, Devizes (Wiltshire), St Helens (Merseyside), Fort William (Scottish Highlands), Clacton and Ashbourne.

All nine hotels will open under the Travelodge brand within the next 18 months.

Travelodge’s property director, Paul Harvey, said: “This announcement demonstrates our strong development pipeline and these hotels will add 568 new rooms to our portfolio. We are clearly well on our way to reaching our target of 4,000 new rooms by the end of the year.”

The company intends to treble the size of its estate by 2020, targeting a 10% share of the UK hotel market.

The chain will open 44 new hotels in 2008, in locations that include Wakefield, Blackpool, Carlisle, and London.

Travelodge now operates 331 hotels in the UK, Ireland and Spain. It plans to grow its estate to 70,000 rooms by 2020.

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