Whitbread plans to create 10,000 jobs
The group, which also owns Beefeater and Brewers Fayre restaurants, has created 2,500 jobs over the past year and intends to recruit a further 10,000 staff in the UK and Ireland by early 2015.
It has plans for 10,000 Premier Inn rooms and will continue the aggressive expansion of Costa, which has increased its UK store numbers by 158 to 1,375 over the past year.
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Hide AdThe ambitious expansion plans were revealed despite a 0.9 per cent fall in like-for-like sales at Premier Inn in the 11 weeks to February 16, although it said it had outperformed the overall hotels market, which was down three per cent outside London.
Costa coffee continued its “excellent” performance, with sales up 24.4 per cent helped by store openings.
Its restaurants division returned to like-for-like sales growth after it came up against weaker comparisons with the previous Christmas, which was hit by Arctic weather.