Super-budget hotel operator easyHotel has hailed a “transformational year” following a successful funds raising in March.
In a trading update the firm reported total sales up 25% to £37.2m to September 30 2018. Like-for-like revenue for franchised hotels increased by 12%.
The firm said the strong performance “reflects the growing momentum in the business”.
It added: “We continue to benefit from our recent strategic initiatives which are enabling us to accelerate our growth plans.
“The new revenue management system launched last year has been very effective.
“This, combined with the excellent performance of our newly opened hotels and the impact of our busy opening programme (through which we launched a total of nine owned and franchised hotels during the period), has delivered strong sales growth.”
Guy Parsons, chief executive of easyHotel, said: “Whilst we are mindful of the current economic uncertainty facing the UK, our simple, stylish and highly affordable customer proposition resonates well with today’s cost-conscious traveller and has underpinned strong RevPar growth over the period.
“The team has worked hard to deliver on an ambitious opening programme across the UK and Europe, which has seen the number of owned hotels in our portfolio double over the course of the financial year and our network of rooms across the UK and Europe increase by 42%, including the opening of easyHotel Barcelona, our first owned hotel in Continental Europe.
“The successful placing completed in March 2018 has enabled us to accelerate our growth plans. We are focussed on expanding our developments as well as balancing our strong UK pipeline with a growing number of exciting European opportunities, creating value for our shareholders and underpinning the long-term growth of the brand.”
The Group expects to announce its Final Results for the year ended 30 September 2018 on 6 December 2018.
In the past year easyHotel has opened five new owned hotels, amounting to 610 rooms, in Liverpool, Newcastle, Leeds, Sheffield and Barcelona, its first owned hotel in Europe.
The group has continued to expand its franchise portfolio opening four new hotels after September 30 in Belfast, Reading, Scheveningen Beach and Maastricht.
These openings significantly increased the Group’s portfolio room count by 42%, bringing
the total network to 33 hotels and 3,068 rooms across 27 cities.
There are plans for new hotels in Milton Keynes, Cardiff, Chester, Cambridge, Dublin and Blackpool.