Whitbread hit by Premier Inns slowdown

16th Jun 2009 07:09

Recession bit hard into Whitbread's latest quarter with sales at Premier Inns tumbling as businessmen stopped travelling. Like-for-like sales in the thirteen weeks to 28 May fell by 2.7% as Premier struggled. Total sales rose by 2.5%. Revenues at the hotel chain slumped by 7.9%, and were down by 9.6% on an available room basis. In response to the weak business market, Whitbread is to expand its presence in the leisure market and has just launched Premier Offers, with hotel rooms from just £29 per room per night. Beefeater Pub restaurants and coffee chain Costa proved more resilient. Costa's sales total sales were up 18.5% year on year and like-for like-sales grew by 2.6%. Excluding airports Costa's like for like sales grew by 4.5%. Pub restaurants' like for like sales increased by 2.0% with like for like covers up 2.6%. Total sales, excluding the 44 sites disposed of in September 2008, rose by 7.4%. "We believe that Whitbread's brands are well placed in their markets, although the outlook is challenging," chief executive Alan Parker said."There's a lot of discounting going on but nobody's better placed to come out of this recession in better shape than we are," he told reporters on a conference call.