When Alan Parker moved Whitbread from beer to hotels no-one got it, they do now

After defying his critics and reshaping former brewer Whitbread into a focused budget hotels and coffee shops group, is Alan Parker planning a quieter life after he retires on his 64th birthday next month? It doesn't look like it.

"The day after I retire, I fly to Dubai for two days of meetings," says the departing chief executive.

"I then fly back, fly to Paris for another board meeting, come back and drive to Devon, where I'm chairman of the board of governors at my old school. I hope it's not always going to be like that."

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Whitbread Shares Advance to Three-Year High on Premier Inn Profit Increase

Whitbread Plc, the largest U.K. hotel and restaurant company, rose to a three-year high in London trading after reporting a 58 percent gain in profit on growth at Premier Inn budget hotels and Costa Coffee shops.

The shares advanced as much as 2.1 percent, climbing to the highest since Nov. 1, 2007.

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Whitbread Confident After Strong Second Quarter

LONDON (Dow Jones)--Hotel and restaurant chain Whitbread PLC (WTB.LN) said Tuesday it's confident of its full year performance, but the strong sales growth in the first half is unlikely to continue in the rest of the financial year.

"It's unrealistic to expect the rates of growth seen in the first half to repeat themselves," said Finance Director Chris Rogers on a conference call with reporters, "I would expect a lower rate of growth."

The operator of Premier Inn hotels and the Costa Coffee chain said that sales in the 24 weeks to Aug. 19 grew 14%. Stripping out the opening of new outlets, sales in the U.K. were up 7.9%--a slight acceleration from the 7.6% growth reported in the first quarter.

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Travelodge rules out sale to Whitbread

Budget hotel group Travelodge is not up for sale and its debt-laden owner Dubai International Capital (DIC) has had no approach from Whitbread (WTB.L), CEO Guy Parsons told Reuters, scotching media speculation.

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Whitbread to maintain hotel price war

The hotel price war that broke out last summer is expected to continue to the end of this year after Whitbread said it had no plans to end the cheap room promotion at its Premier Inn budget hotel chain.

Having for years shunned discounting, Whitbread introduced a £29-a-room offer last June in response to aggressive price-cutting by mid-market competitors

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Budget hotels and coffee chain boost Whitbread sales

Alan Parker, the outgoing chief executive of Whitbread, today told shareholders the group's focus on budget hotels and "affordable treats" at high street coffee shops was continuing to power industry-beating sales performance.

After six years at the helm of the company behind Premier Inn and Costa Coffee, Parker is departing on a high, telling shareholders gathered at the QEII Conference Centre in Westminster that sales were continuing to rebound ahead of peers.

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Whitbread chief’s £5m pay perks

THE outgoing boss of Whitbread, the leisure group, has started collecting his pension, including a one-off payment of £5.4m, even though he does not retire until November.


Alan Parker, who has been at Whitbread for 18 years, the past six of them as chief executive, will be entitled to an annual payment of just over £135,000 on top of the lump sum he has already received.

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Big expansion planned at Whitbread as profits soar by 77%

Whitbread is targeting a 32% expansion in its Premier Inn hotel brand to 55,000 rooms in the UK by 2015, and could increase its Costa brand to 3,000 stores worldwide over the same period.


The news came as the group announced that total revenue climbed by 7.5% to almost £1.44b in 2009, thanks to the expansion of its Premier Inn, Costa and restaurant brands.

The group also pointed to improving like-for-like sales in the final quarter of the year, following a tough start to the year, which meant that overall like-for-like sales were down just 0.5% in 2009.

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Premier Inn opens at Dubai airport

Premier Inn has now opened its third site within the Gulf region at Premier Inn Dubai International Airport.

This development follows two openings in Dubai over the last 18 months, and also the first Premier Inn site in Bangalore, India which opened towards the end of 2009.

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Outsider is favourite as Whitbread seeks new chief

Whitbread has appointed headhunters to help find a successor for Alan Parker, who is expected to announce in the summer that he is retiring as chief executive of the leisure group, The Times has learnt.

Mr Parker, 63, was expected to complete a five-year stint when he was promoted to the top job from head of hotels in 2004. However, his success in turning around Whitbread’s fortunes, allied to his enthusiasm for the job, have allowed him to stay past his scheduled departure date.

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National & World Restaurant News Whitbread optimistic about year results

Hotel, pub and coffee shop group Whitbread has announced it expects results for 2009 to exceed top market estimates.

The group's forecast comes after sales rallied significantly in the third quarter of the year, with total sales up 6.7 per cent across the three months and like-for-like sales rising 0.3 per cent.

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Travelodge vs. Premier Inn's

In connection with our article "Travelodge finds room for complaint in Premier Inn’s adverts for bargain rates" , we received the following Email


Hi Eric

Hope this finds you well. Following your article ‘Travelodge finds room for complaint in Premier Inn’s adverts for bargain rates’, please see statement from a spokesperson from Premier Inn below:

“The UK's biggest hotel chain Premier Inn is confident that it is geared up to offer guests outstanding value. The Premier Inn website homepage has a distinctive banner which clearly indicates where customers should book value offers and Premier Inn's busy call centre has taken hundreds of thousands of bookings for the £29 Premier Offer.”

Please let me know if you require more info.

Best
Gee


Gee Wong
FRANK PR
3rd Floor, Centro 4, 20-23 Mandela Street, London, NW1 0DU
Direct: 020 7693 6971
Office: 020 7693 6999

Premier Inn to sell and leaseback five hotels

Whitbread is to market five Premier Inn hotels on a sale and leaseback basis, raising around £30m to further the group’s development plans.

Operating its 584 UK hotels on a predominantly freehold basis, Premier Inn will initially trial the concept with just five hotels as it explores alternative ways to raise development funds

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Whitbread's budget may stretch to Premier Inn and Travelodge merger

Whitbread, the leisure group, is in talks to create the dominant force in the British budget hotel market by merging its Premier Inn chain with the rival hotel company Travelodge.

It is understood that talks between the two are at an early stage, although both sides are believed to agree on the merits of a deal. “The commercial logic is compelling,” a source said.

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Whitbread PLC interim results for the six months ended 27 August 2009

Financial Highlights
-Total revenue up 3.1% to £703.3 million (2008/09: £682.2 million)
-Group like for like sales down 2.7%
-Underlying profit1 before tax of £118.2 million down 2.7% (2008/09: £121.5 million)
-Profit before tax and exceptional items down 10.4% to £110.5 million (2008/09: £123.3 million)
-Underlying diluted EPS 47.33p (2008/09: 49.14p)
-Pre-exceptional diluted EPS 44.17p (2008/09: 49.89p)
-Half year net debt at £606.6 million (versus £623.1 million at 26 February 2009); current facilities of £1.16 billion
- Interim dividend 9.65p (2008/09: 9.65p)

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Cheap rooms and coffee help Whitbread through worst of hospitality slump

Premier Inn, the UK’s biggest hotel chain, will claim it is winning a cut-throat price war raging across the hospitality industry when its owners at Whitbread check in with trading results on Tuesday.
Chief executive Alan Parker will say that heavy promotional activity, spearheaded by comedian Lenny Henry, has helped it to increase its share of the key business market while attracting new custom from the tourist trade in the opening months of the year

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Whitbread reins in expenses and cuts costs to ride out storm’s worst

The chief executive of Whitbread, the Premier Inn and Costa coffee shop operator, damped down talk of economic recovery yesterday, insisting he had yet to see any “substantive signs of improvement”.
Alan Parker, who took the helm five years ago, said that it was the “worst recession ever in my experience”, adding: “I’d say we’re bumping along the bottom. There’s good news and bad news but overall we’re not seeing any green shoots. Hopefully we’ll see some improvement in the new year.”

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Whitbread Soars as Sales at Costa Rise in Recession

Sept. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Whitbread Plc, the operator of the Premier Inn budget-hotel chain, rose the most in more than 10 years in London trading as sales at its Costa Coffee unit increased, and the company said it would meet profit estimates.

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Whitbread to end its final salary pension for all staff

Whitbread, the owner of the Costa coffee and Premier Inn chains, yesterday became the latest company to cut into workers’ pension provision as it outlined plans to shut its generous final-salary scheme to existing staff.
The leisure group said that 800 employees, or about 3 per cent of the workforce, would be affected.

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Premier Inn secures five new English sites

Budget hotel chain Premier Inn is to expand its portfolio by five hotels across England.
The Whitbread-owned operator has secured five sites worth a combined total of £27m, which will add 535-bedrooms to Premier Inn’s portfolio.
The new sites include a deal to build a 121-bedroom Premier Inn at the Medway Leisure Park in Rochester, Kent, as well as a contract with the Newton Abbott Jockey Club to build a 62-bedroom hotel and Table Table restaurant.
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http://www.caterersearch.com/Articles/2009/08/03/329036/premier-inn-secures-five-new-english-sites.html