Sales boost for Travelodge as guests seek budget hotels

Published by

Peter Davison

Tourists looking for cheaper accommodation during the cost of living crisis has led to record financial results for budget hotel chain Travelodge.

The Oxfordshire-headquartered company said yesterday (Monday) that underlying revenue jumped to £909.9 million in 2022, up from £559.7 million a year earlier and £727.9 million pre-pandemic in 2019.

During the same period revenue per room was £52.59, compared with £33.04 and £42.46.

Occupancy was also up, at a shade over 80 per cent.

The chain said it opened six new hotels in 2022, including one Irish franchise in Dublin.

It is now targeting 300 new locations across the UK and expects to open eight in 2023, adding to its portfolio of 595 hotels and 45,781 rooms.

CEO Jo Boydell said: “Travelodge delivered an excellent trading performance in 2022, with record profits and revenue growth.

"The market recovered, with strong demand for events and short staycation breaks throughout the year as well as for essential business travel and we continued to outperform the Midscale and Economy segment.

“Whilst the current macro-economic environment creates some uncertainty, the budget hotel segment has proven resilient as consumers continue to search for great value options within the marketplace - such as those offered by Travelodge.

"Looking ahead, we remain confident in the long-term prospects for Travelodge and excited about our future growth opportunities.”

Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country. An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts. Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.