Travel Inn plans a makeover in time for the millennium

Travel Inn, the budget hotel chain owned by Whitbread, plans to shed its "1980s image" with a makeover costing £3m.

The chain is hoping to stop confusion with rival Travelodge. It is also putting up its room prices.

Airport and city centre sites, with the exception of London hotels, are to be renamed Travel Inn Metros and will undergo a rate increase from £39.95 to £44.95.

Grant Hearn, managing director of Travel Inn, said the group planned to have about 30 Metros, each with 200 rooms, within five years.

Central London hotels, which will remain Travel Inn Capitals, have already increased their rate by £10 in the past year, to £59.95. This makes Travel Inn's prices almost identical to those at Granada's Travelodge (£39.95-£59.95).

Travel Inn has hotels under construction at London's Tower Bridge and in central Glasgow. Plans are also under way for a hotel in Belfast.

All 213 Travel Inns are to have new signs and staff uniforms over the next six months after research revealed that the public considered its old logo as "cold, clinical and 1980s".

"We need to differentiate ourselves from the rest of the market," Hearn said.

The move is part of the chain's £300m expansion plan over the next five years: it is aiming to double in size in terms of number of rooms.

by Christina Golding