Premier Inn launches new high-tech budget brand
Premier Inn is launching an even more budget brand where guests can control everything from their own mobile phone.
Called ‘hub by Premier Inn’, the new brand will have rooms no larger than 11.4 metres squared.
The new brand will focus on major UK city centres and the first will open in London’s West End next summer.
Parent company Whitbread has plans for five ‘hubs’ (around 1,000 rooms) in the next three years and aims to have 40 (around 6,000 rooms) opened or in the pipeline by 2018.
Rooms will be, on average, up to 30% cheaper than a comparable Premier Inn in Central London, at under £100 a night mid-week.
They have been trialled since last June at the Premier Inn Kings Cross.
Using "ingenious storage solutions in every nook and cranny" and "state of the art digital technology", the rooms are aimed at guests who "value location, price and design over space".
Each room will have an en suite bathroom with power shower, wardrobe, Hypnos pocket-sprung bed, desk (which folds up into the bed), free Wi-Fi and a 40inch smart screen TV.
Guests can download a smart phone app to check in online and control the room’s lighting, temperature and what will be on the TV or radio when they arrive.
Each hotel will have its own deli-style restaurant serving local produce and guests will be able to pre-order breakfast using the ‘hub’ app.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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