Whitbread sales rise despite poor January weather
Whitbread, owner of the Premier Inn and Costa coffee brands, has grown like-for-like sales for the 50 weeks to 14 February 2013 by 3.7%, with total sales up 14.8%.
However, the firm has experienced a tougher run in the last 11 weeks to 14 February, with like-for-likes rising 2.7%, while restaurant sales up just 0.2% over the period. However total sales growth over the 11 weeks was 16.9%.
Whitbread chief executive Andy Harrison hailed more strong growth from the business in a tough environment.
"For the financial year to date, Whitbread has again delivered outstanding organic growth in a flat consumer market, growing total sales by 14.8%," he said.
"Our strong brands continue to win market share, supported by our highest ever guest satisfaction scores and rapid expansion of our network. Good like-for-like sales growth of 3.7% demonstrates the consumer appeal of our brands and also enables us to reinvest in our people and facilities and to grow our estate.
He added: "During the fourth quarter, we maintained our strong momentum with total sales growth of 16.9%, although the headline like for like sales growth of 2.7% was slightly suppressed by adverse weather conditions in January, particularly affecting the restaurants business.
"Premier Inn continued to outperform its competitive set and delivered total sales growth of 14.1% together with like for like sales growth of 2.9%. Our restaurant business continued to improve, outperforming the Coffer Peach industry benchmark, with like for like sales growth of 0.2%."
Over the 50 weeks, Premier Inn increased its total room nights sold by 11.2% to 13 milloion, while over the year to date its revpar grew by 1.6%, with occupancy up 1.1 percentage points to 77.4%.
Costa's total system sales over the 50 weeks were up by 22.4% to £962m while franchise sales were up 18.5% to £383.3m.
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