Envergure is all set to grow outside France

French budget hotel company Groupe Envergure has earmarked €70m-€90m (£48.6m-£63.5m) a year to expand its Campanile brand outside France.

Chief operating officer Keith Lindsay said Groupe Envergure would concentrate on four countries for its expansion - Spain, Italy, Poland and the UK - with the greatest emphasis on Spain and the UK.

This year, the group opened two new Campaniles, one in Leicester and one in Glasgow, to add to its portfolio of 17. It plans to add about 30 more over the next five years, and is already looking at sites in Edinburgh, Nottingham, Leeds and central London.

The hotels will be a mix of newly built and existing properties.

In Spain and Italy, Groupe Envergure plans to open seven new hotels by the end of 2004, and 45 more within the next three to five years.

Lindsay said that the group would be particularly aggressive in its expansion in Spain, as there is virtually no budget hotel market there. He said that the country had just 40 budget hotels, compared with 1,000 in the UK.

The group, which has 390 Campanile hotels in Europe, expects to turn over €320m (£222m) this year.