Trading Statement for the Year Ended 31 December 2015 (Unaudited)
Financial Highlights
• EBITDA(1) exceeds £100m for the first time in Travelodge’s history
• Total revenue(2) up 13% to £558m (2014: £494m)
• RevPar(3) up 11.7% to £38.44 (2014: £34.42); outperforming the market
• Average room rate(3) up 10.2% to £50.19 (2014: £45.53)
• Occupancy(3) up 1.0 percentage point to 76.6% (2014: 75.6%)
Operational Highlights
• Travelodge welcomed a record 18m customers in 2015
• UK hotel modernisation programme completed
• Upgraded hotels and great service driving average TripAdvisor score of 4 stars
• ‘That’s Travelodgical’ advertising drives 12% growth in web sales
• 45% growth in direct business customer sales
• Breakfast sales up 13% driven by new higher quality breakfast offer
• 12 new hotels opened (2014: 5)
• 19 new hotels expected to open in 2016
• Continued acceleration of new development pipeline
Peter Gowers, Travelodge Chief Executive commented:
“We are delighted to announce a record year for Travelodge. Our investment in the customer experience is delivering excellent results and our new-look rooms are driving substantial improvements in guest satisfaction. We are seeing significant growth from business customers and like for like sales growth was again substantially ahead of the UK hotel market. With record customer numbers and further growth from our new hotels, our final reported EBITDA(1) for the full year will exceed £100m for the first time in Travelodge’s 30 year history.”
Peter continued:
“There continues to be strong underlying growth potential for value hotels. Travelodge has continued to outperform its market segment in the first weeks of 2016 and we have 19 new hotels scheduled to open this year. We have identified 250 further potential UK locations for new hotels and with our strong brand, direct distribution model and growing development pipeline, the board believes the company is well positioned to continue to deliver substantial further growth in the years ahead.”
Travelodge, the UK’s largest independent hotel brand, is pleased to report the initial view of its results for the full year 2015, ahead of final publication of its annual report and accounts in the second quarter of 2016.
Financial Performance
Growing Sales and Outperforming the Market
For the year to 31 December 2015 revenues (unaudited) were as follows:
UK like-for-like RevPAR was up 11.7% to £38.44, substantially outperforming the Smith Travel Midscale and Economy Sector, which was up 7.2% for the same period.
The investment we have made in upgrading our guestrooms led to UK like-for-like occupancy rising 1.0 percentage point, to 76.6% (2014: 75.6%). UK like-for-like average room rate, supported by effective yield management was up 10.2% to £50.19 (2014: £45.53).
Total revenues were up 13% to £558m, with strong growth in both London and the UK regions.
Significant further growth from business customers remained one of the principal drivers of our improved performance, with direct business sales up 45% on the prior year.
Costs remain tightly controlled and reported EBITDA for the twelve months to 31 December 2015 will exceed £100m for the first time in Travelodge’s history.
Operational Update
In this our 30th anniversary year, we delivered further improvements for our customers.
Investing in Quality
We continue to invest in improving the quality and consistency of our hotels:
Our £100m UK hotel modernisation programme was concluded on December 18. This marked the culmination of a three year programme, in which almost 35,000 rooms were modernised with our new more contemporary look and feel and the new Travelodge Dreamer® king-sized beds. Every UK Travelodge hotel now offers a consistent quality room experience to our guests, updated for the needs of modern travellers.
Supported by these upgraded quality levels and improved customer service, our average Trip Advisor scores continue to strengthen. Our UK estate now averages four out of five stars. We were pleased to receive 168 Trip Advisor certificates of excellence in 2015, more than double the number in 2014.
Strengthening the Brand and Direct Channels
We have continued to strengthen the appeal of our brand and our direct distribution channels, which account for more than 85% of our sales.
Our ‘That’s Travelodgical’ advertising, launched in May 2015 has received tremendous customer feedback, raising our brand awareness and heightening awareness of our upgraded rooms.
In April we launched our mobile app, which has now been downloaded by more than 180,000 customers and has an average booking conversion rate almost twice that of our website as a whole.
These new initiatives contributed to web sales up 12% on prior year.
Adding Facilities and Delivering Great Value For Money
Supporting our ambition to be the favourite hotel for value for business and leisure travellers, we continue to add more hotels with restaurants to our network and more than 150 of our hotels now feature on-site bar café facilities.
In 2015 we also introduced our best ever breakfast, offering outstanding value for an all you can eat buffet which now includes Linda McCartney vegetarian sausages, Yeo Valley organic yoghurts and Lavazza coffee. Customer feedback on the new breakfast has been excellent and in 2015 we sold more than 2.5m breakfasts, with our restaurant breakfast sales up 13%.
Development Update
Putting Travelodge Where Customers Want To Be
We continue to broaden our network. We have identified more than 250 further locations suitable for Travelodge and we continue to grow our network in the major cities and key leisure destinations across the UK.
We opened twelve new hotels and one extension in 2015, adding 1002 rooms. This increased our total number of rooms in the UK to 37,670. These new hotels cemented our presence in London, where we have 64 hotels, and extended our reach to key regional locations.
We expect to open 19 hotels during 2016 including new sites in London at Finchley, Finsbury Park and Raynes Park and in key regional locations including Glasgow and Bristol.
Our secure development pipeline continues to grow and now stands at c. 3,000 rooms.
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About Travelodge
Founded in 1985, Travelodge is the UK’s largest independent hotel brand.
There were 526 Travelodge hotels and 39,190 rooms in the UK, Spain and Ireland as at 31 December 2015. Travelodge welcomes approximately 18 million customers every year and almost 10,000 colleagues work across the business.
Notes:
Financial results in this summary document are extracts from the management reporting of Thame and London Limited and its subsidiary companies, including Travelodge Hotels Limited. All financial references in this summary document are unaudited.
Smith Travel Research (STR) is an independent hotel research provider, providing aggregate benchmarking information on the UK and other hotel market performance.
For further information, please contact:
Travelodge Press Office
01844 358 703