Premier Inn to open 14 GCC hotels in three years

UK-based budget hotel brand Premier Inn will open 14 hotels in the GCC over the next three years, a company executive told UAE daily Gulf News.

Whitbread, which owns the brand, will open one hotel each in Sharjah, Riyadh, Dammam, Jubail, Manama, two each in Muscat, Doha, and Jeddah, and three hotels in Dubai.

Premier Inn managing director Darroch Crawford said: “We are targeting a minimum of 30 hotels in the GCC by 2020.”

Four of the upcoming properties – one in Jeddah, Dubai, Sharjah and Manama – will be built by Action Hotels at a cost of AED 378 million (US $103 million).

The hotels are expected to cost between AED 80 million and AED 100 million each to build.

Crawford revealed the hotel chain is also considering opening properties in Thailand, Malaysia, India, Singapore, and Indonesia.