Premier Inn is a British limited service hotel chain and the UK's largest hotel brand, with more than 72,000 rooms and 800 hotels. It operates hotels in a variety of locations including city centres, suburbs and airports competing with the likes of
Travelodge
Travelodge (formerly TraveLodge) refers to several hotel chains around the world. Current operations include: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia and several countries in Asia. However, many of t ...
and
Ibis
The ibises () (collective plural ibis; classical plurals ibides and ibes) are a group of long-legged wading birds in the family Threskiornithidae, that inhabit wetlands, forests and plains. "Ibis" derives from the Latin and Ancient Greek word f ...
hotels.
The company was established by
Whitbread
Whitbread plc is a multinational British hotel and restaurant company headquartered in Houghton Regis, England.
The business was founded as a brewery in 1742, and had become the largest brewery in the world by the 1780s.
Its largest division ...
as Travel Inn in 1987, to compete with
Travelodge
Travelodge (formerly TraveLodge) refers to several hotel chains around the world. Current operations include: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia and several countries in Asia. However, many of t ...
. Whitbread bought Premier Lodge in 2004 and merged it with Travel Inn to form the current business under the name "Premier Travel Inn", which was then shortened to "Premier Inn" in 2007. Premier Inn accounts for 70% of Whitbread's earnings.
History
The chain started trading in 1987 as Travel Inn. The first site to open was next to "The Watermill"
Beefeater restaurant in
Basildon
Basildon ( ) is the largest town in the borough of Basildon, within the county of Essex, England. It has a population of 107,123. In 1931 the parish had a population of 1159.
It lies east of Central London, south of the city of Chelmsford and ...
.
In 2004,
Whitbread
Whitbread plc is a multinational British hotel and restaurant company headquartered in Houghton Regis, England.
The business was founded as a brewery in 1742, and had become the largest brewery in the world by the 1780s.
Its largest division ...
acquired another hotel chain, Premier Lodge, for £536 million. This added 141 hotels to the portfolio. Whitbread renamed every hotel "Premier Travel Inn".
In 2005, Premier Travel Inn opened its 500th hotel in
Hemel Hempstead
Hemel Hempstead () is a town in the Dacorum district in Hertfordshire, England, northwest of London, which is part of the Greater London Urban Area. The population at the 2011 census was 97,500.
Developed after the Second World War as a ne ...
.
In early 2006, Premier Travel Inn purchased 11
Holiday Inn
Holiday Inn is an American chain of hotels based in Atlanta, Georgia. and a brand of IHG Hotels & Resorts. The chain was founded in 1952 by Kemmons Wilson, who opened the first location in Memphis, Tennessee that year. The chain was a division ...
hotels in England and Wales. These sites kept their leisure facilities such as a swimming pool and gym, except the hotel situated at
Norman Cross
Norman Cross Prison in Huntingdonshire, England, was the world's first purpose-built prisoner-of-war camp or "depot", built in 1796–97 to hold prisoners of war from France and its allies during the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic War ...
.
Premier Travel Inn started to launch a new bedroom design during this year to move away from the differences of "Travel Inn" and "Premier Lodge". Until then rooms had remained as they had been before and new hotels were designed as "Travel Inns".
Whitbread shortened the name to "Premier Inn" in 2007; by 2009 the business accounted for more than 70% of Whitbread's earnings.
In September 2007, Whitbread announced the purchase of Golden Tulip UK including six hotels trading in the UK under the Tulip Inn and Golden Tulip brands. The hotels were converted to Premier Inns.
In April 2008, Whitbread announced a £100 million expansion of Premier Inn in London over the following three years.
In July 2008, Whitbread bought 21
Express by Holiday Inn hotels in exchange for 44 Beefeater & Brewers Fayre restaurants where it was not possible to build a Premier Inn.
In 2011, the 600th hotel was opened in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Premier Inn have sold off some of their smaller hotels (which had fewer than 30 rooms) to Good Night Inns. Most of these were Premier Lodge sites in less prominent locations.
In July 2015, the 700th Premier Inn was opened in
Kingston-upon-Thames
Kingston upon Thames (hyphenated until 1965, colloquially known as Kingston) is a town in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, southwest London, England. It is situated on the River Thames and southwest of Charing Cross. It is notable as ...
, London. The company plans to operate 85,000 bedrooms in the UK by 2020.
Locations
United Kingdom
![Cambridge Orchard Park Premier Inn](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Cambridge_Orchard_Park_Premier_Inn.jpg)
The Premier Inn chain can be found from
Thurso
Thurso (pronounced ; sco, Thursa, gd, Inbhir Theòrsa ) is a town and former burgh on the north coast of the Highland council area of Scotland. Situated in the historical County of Caithness, it is the northernmost town on the island of Gre ...
in the north of Scotland to
Helston
Helston ( kw, Hellys) is a town and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated at the northern end of the Lizard Peninsula approximately east of Penzance and south-west of Falmouth.Ordnance Survey: Landranger map she ...
, Cornwall in south-west England. Hotels are found either in city centres or on the outskirts near to major A roads and motorways. In October 2010, the Premier Inn hotels located at
Roadchef
Roadchef is a company which operates 21 motorway service areas in the United Kingdom. It is the third-largest motorway service area operator in the country, behind Moto and Welcome Break and followed by Extra.
History
Roadchef was founded in J ...
and
Moto motorway service stations were sold to
Days Inn
Days Inn is a hotel chain headquartered in the United States. It was founded in 1970 by Cecil B. Day, who opened the first location in Tybee Island, Georgia. The brand is now a part of the Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, headquartered in Parsippan ...
after the franchise agreement was terminated. Hotels vary in size, with many smaller inns and large purpose-built city centre hotels.
Most Premier Inn hotels are newly built, although many of the chain's inner city locations in the UK are housed within redeveloped office buildings which would otherwise have been demolished. Some hotels such as "Bristol Airport" in
Sidcot
Sidcot School is a British co-educational independent school for boarding and day pupils, associated with the Religious Society of Friends. It is one of seven Quaker schools in England. The school is based in the Mendip Hills near the village ...
are housed in older buildings.
In the wake of the
Grenfell Tower fire
On 14 June 2017, a high-rise fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London, at 00:54 BST and burned for 60 hours. 72 people died, two later in hospital, with more than 70 injured and 223 escapin ...
, Premier Inn said three of their hotels in Maidenhead, Brentford and Tottenham were built with cladding.
All three were tested and found to comply with building fire standards. None of them had the same type as Grenfell Tower.
Ireland
![Premier Inn, Swords - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Premier_Inn%2C_Swords_-_geograph.org.uk_-_741699.jpg)
In 2007, Premier Inn entered Ireland, when it took over the Tulip Inn in
Swords
A sword is a cutting and/or thrusting weapon.
Sword, Swords, or The Sword may also refer to:
Places
* Swords, Dublin, a large suburban town in the Irish capital
* Swords, Georgia, a community in the United States
* Sword Beach, code name for ...
. Premier Inn offer bus transfers to and from Dublin Airport, which is nearby. As of 2019, Premier Inn is currently pursuing an expansion in
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
and has bought four sites in the city centre and
Docklands area including at Aungiers Street, Castleforbes Business Park, Gloucester Street South and Jervis Street.
United Arab Emirates
In 2006, Premier Inn announced that it had entered into a joint venture agreement with Emirates Group to launch in the
Gulf Cooperation Council
The Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf ( ar, مجلس التعاون لدول العربية الخليج ), also known as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC; ar, مجلس التعاون الخليجي), is a regional, interg ...
region. This was the first move to expand the brand beyond the UK. The joint venture identified three sites in Dubai, creating more than 800 new rooms. The first Premier Inn in Dubai to open was a 300-room hotel at Dubai Investment Park. A similar size hotel at Dubai Airport, and a 220-room hotel at
Dubai Silicon Oasis
Dubai Silicon Oasis known as DSO ( ar, واحة دبي للسيليكون) is a free-trade zone established by the Dubai government in 2003, spanning an area of 7.2 square kilometers.
History
In 2003, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice- ...
on Emirates Road, were opened. Dubai Ibn Battuta Mall Hotel has also been opened, connected to
Ibn Battuta Mall
The Ibn Battuta Mall is a large shopping mall on the Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai, UAE, close to Interchange 6 for Jebel Ali Village.
Overview
Having around 275 shops, 50 restaurants, and over 4,500 parking spaces on a total of , Ibn Battuta is the ...
. There is also a Premier Inn located in the Abu Dhabi Capital Centre, and another Premier Inn located in Abu Dhabi International Airport which opened on 19 November 2013.
Premier Inn operate a total of 8 hotels in Dubai, and 2 hotels in Abu Dhabi.
Qatar
Premier Inn has two locations in Qatar. One in Education City, next to Qatar National Convention Centre (QNCC), which opened in May 2017. This hotel also has a swimming pool and gym. Premier Inn opened their second hotel in January 2020 near Hamad International Airport, which is also located in the close vicinity of Souq Waqif, National Museum of Qatar and Museum of Islamic Art. Within three years Premier Inn brand has established itself as the leading midmarket hotel brand in Qatar with high guest review ratings on hotel rating forums such as Google, Booking.com and Tripadvisor.
Germany
In 2016, Premier Inn launched its first hotel in the German market –
Frankfurt Messe. As of July 2021, it has grown to 28 hotels across the principal German cities, partly through the acquisition of Ninety Nine, Four Side, Centro and Boutique 009 hotels.
Formats
As well as the standard Premier Inns, which are limited service hotels, there are two sub-brands. ''Hub by Premier Inn'' is a city-centre format with smaller rooms but in-room technology such as tablets. ''Zip by Premier Inn'' is lower-priced and has smaller pod-like rooms. Some rooms do not have windows and there is a simplified food and drink service. The first Zip hotel was opened in
Roath
Roath ( cy, Y Rhath) is a district and community to the north-east of the city centre of Cardiff, capital of Wales.
There is no community council for the area which is mostly covered by the Plasnewydd electoral ward, and stretches from Adamsdo ...
, Cardiff in 2019.
Restaurants
All Premier Inns have an on-site restaurant, with the exception of hotels which were formerly Holiday Inn Express, where kitchen facilities were added to the hotel for breakfasts only. Most hotels are accompanied by a Whitbread restaurant such as Whitbread Inns,
Table Table
Table Table is a brand of restaurants set up by Whitbread in 2008, the brand actually started in 2006 but was unnamed. The brand was created following a rethink of the former Whitbread brand Out & Out. The majority of Table Tables are converted ...
,
Brewers Fayre
Brewers Fayre is a licensed pub restaurant chain, with 161 locations across the UK as of August 2018. Owned by Whitbread, Brewers Fayre restaurants are known for serving traditional British pub food and for their Sunday Carvery.
History
The f ...
or
Beefeater. The majority of town and city centre hotels have an in-house restaurant called Thyme. City centre hotels used to have a Slice or BarEst restaurant, whose design and menus were very similar. Hotels that used to be Premier Lodges have a range of different restaurants, operated by
Spirit Pub Company
Spirit Pub Company plc (Spirit) was a pub and restaurant company in the United Kingdom based in Burton upon Trent and originally formed by Punch Taverns. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange until it was acquired by Greene King in June 20 ...
such as Chef & Brewer or Fayre & Square. Former Express by Holiday Inn sites have a
Mitchells & Butlers
Mitchells & Butlers plc (also referred to as "M&B") runs circa 1,784 managed pubs, bars and restaurants throughout the United Kingdom. The company's headquarters are in Birmingham, England. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange an ...
restaurant, either
Harvester,
Toby Carvery
Toby Carvery is a British carvery chain brand owned and operated by Mitchells & Butlers, which consists of 158 restaurants.
History
Toby Carvery as a brand was founded as part of Bass Charrington in 1985. The parent company subsequently reb ...
or Vintage Inns. Some hotels have a third-party restaurant that used to be owned by Whitbread, such as
TGI Friday's
TGI Fridays (operating in the UK as FRIDAYS) is an American restaurant chain focusing on primarily American cuisine and casual dining. The restaurant's founder said the name stood for "Thank God It's Friday", although some television commerc ...
. Newer inner city Premier Inns which have been built in smaller spaces have a restaurant called The Kitchen.
Advertising
Premier Inn was the first major budget hotel chain in the UK to invest in prime time television advertising. After Travel Inn and Premier Lodge merged, animated adverts were used to advertise the merger. In late 2007, comedian
Lenny Henry
Sir Lenworth George Henry (born 29 August 1958) is a British actor, comedian, singer, television presenter and writer.
Henry gained success as a stand-up comedian and impressionist in the late 1970s and early 1980s, culminating in ''The Lenn ...
became the face of the campaign and is now in every advert.
In May 2011, the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
'' criticised its widely advertised £29 promotion, having received complaints from viewers that it was almost impossible to book for that price because very few promotional rooms were available. Premier Inn stated that this was due to its rooms being "popular".
Online and digital promotion now drive a significant proportion of bookings made for the brand. Premier Inn have made substantial investments in both its main website and mobile app for smartphone bookings, and these are further complemented by
, whereby third party websites drive bookings onto the Premier Inn website.