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Premier Inn unveils ‘no-frills’ room

A new “no-frills” version of the budget Premier Inn hotel brand was unveiled today.

The first Zip by Premier Inn is to open in Cardiff in February with rooms costing from £19 a night.

Parent company Whitbread aims to open three or four before deciding whether to expand the concept further.

The Zip in Cardiff is near an industrial estate and it has secured a site in Southampton for a second one.

The rooms will be roughly half the size of a standard Premier Inn room at 8.5 sq m.

They can be made up as a single bed, twin single beds or pushed together to make a double.

Each has a small bathroom with power shower, a TV and overhead storage.

Rooms will only be cleaned once every three days with a £5 fee for daily cleaning.

They are designed by Priestman Goode, the consultancy behind first-class cabins for Air France and Lufthansa.

Premier Inn managing director Simon Jones said that consumer research and a trial of six Zip rooms at its hotel in South Mimms, Hertfordshire, had established that guests were willing to forgo large rooms, central locations and “bells and whistles” if it saved them money.

The average price of a standard Premier Inn room is £57.

Whitbread, which is in the process of selling Costa to the Coca-Cola Company for £3.9 billion, has 789 Premier Inn hotels in Britain, six in the Middle East and one in Germany.

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