Travelodge has acquired the leases on three former Purple hotels adding 258 rooms to its 26,000 UK room stock.
Purple hotels’ operator The Real Hotel Group fell into administration in January this year.
The leases on the three properties located at Sheffield Meadowhall, Derby and Tewkesbury will transfer to the Travelodge brand and the hotels will continue to trade with all 72 employees moving to the budget chain.
The conversion of these existing hotels with bring the budget chain’s 2009 openings to date to seven.
A total of 17 going concern hotels have been converted to the Travelodge brand in the last17 months and the chain expects the number to increase as the recession bites.
Travelodge managing director of international development Paul Harvey said: “All three of these properties will draw on both the business and leisure markets and we are confident of an early and strong uptake. The current economic climate lends itself to very competitive property prices and we are currently adding one going concern hotel to our brand every month.
“We expect this trend to continue and even grow with more struggling hotel companies selling assets to the Travelodge brand. Beyond hotels we are also looking to convert housing projects, offices, factories and even railway stations to maintain our rapid growth programme.”