Whitbread unveils new hotel brand with pod-style rooms
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17:08 19/04/24
Whitbread unveiled a new “no-frills” hotel branch that will offer basic pod-styled rooms to cater for budget travellers.
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After FTSE 100-listed Whitbread sold off its Costa Coffee chain in August and has subsequently put the finishing touches to the new ZIP hotel brand with the assistance of consultancies Wolff Olins and JCS Design.
The hotels will be located on the outskirts of major towns and cities and will feature rooms half the size of a standard Premier Inn room, with just 8.5 square meters, with prices at £19 and above.
A first ZIP hotel will open with 138 rooms in the Roath district of Cardiff in early 2019 and Whitbread has secured a second site which will open in Southampton with 140 rooms.
Alison Brittain, CEO, Whitbread PLC said, “We have invested in the Premier Inn brand over many years to become the UK’s most-loved hotel company with 800 hotels in the UK, and we believe there is a niche in an under-served market for ZIP. It offers us an exciting new platform for growth and will give us access to a broader customer base, attracting those guests who are on a particularly tight budget but still expect and deserve the basics done brilliantly.”