Travelodge has reported rising sales and profits in the first half of the year as more consumers and businesses opt for budget hotels amid the UK's economic slowdown.
The hotels chain saw revenue rise 8% to £317.2 million in the six months to June 27, while adjusted earnings grew £1.3 million to £43.3 million.
The firm pointed to "economic uncertainty" in the UK, which has helped drive up demand for budget accommodation among consumers and businesses.
Boss Peter Gowers said: "While the UK continues to face economic uncertainty, demand for budget hotels remains strong and more and more businesses are choosing the budget sector."
However, Travelodge bemoaned the impact of "significant" cost increases, citing the National Living Wage and operational burdens, although it added that it has successfully navigated these challenges.
Like for like revenue per available room was up 3.1%, helped by the re-opening of one of its London hotels.
"Travelodge delivered strong revenue growth and has continued to outperform the midscale and economy market segment.
"Our focus on location, price and quality is paying off with another period of increased occupancy," Mr Gowers added.
Travelodge opened 6 hotels in the period with a further 3 opened in the current quarter, including one at London City.
The firm expects to open 20 new hotels this year.
The results mark a continued turnaround from when Travelodge went through a painful restructuring in 2012.
It saw GoldenTree Asset Management, Avenue Capital and Goldman Sachs take control of the company via a debt-for-equity swap from Dubai International Capital.
The trio have invested over £150 million since.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here