VS Series
Premier Inn v Travelodge
Budget beds: who fills the rooms, and who makes them pay?
Premier Inn leads on turnover, pre-tax profit, profit margin and net assets; Travelodge on growth. Premier Inn is the biggest by turnover at £2,920m, against £1,009m at Travelodge. Premier Inn keeps more of every £100 it takes, £10.22 as pre-tax profit.
The year ends are close enough to compare like for like. Premier Inn files group accounts that include subsidiaries; Travelodge files for a single company, which flatters the group on size.
Accounts compared: Premier Inn to Feb 2026 · Travelodge to Dec 2025
Who they are
Premier Inn
Whitbread PLC · 04120344Whitbread is the hotel group that owns Premier Inn, the UK's biggest hotel brand, with over 900 hotels across the UK, Ireland and Germany, including its smaller-room hub by Premier Inn hotels in London and Edinburgh.In brief: hotel group · owns Premier Inn · UK, Ireland and Germany · pub restaurants beside its hotelsFull profile →Travelodge
Travelodge Hotels Limited · 00769170Travelodge is a budget hotel chain offering simple, low-cost rooms in towns, cities, airports and roadside locations across the UK, with further hotels in Ireland and Spain.In brief: budget hotels · UK, Ireland and Spain · room revenue · leased hotelsFull profile →The Numbers
The leader on each measure is marked. Movements are against each company's own prior year. Pre-tax profit is filed except where marked (est.). This profile shows Whitbread PLC, which owns Premier Inn. Its revenue of £2,920.2m is £2,245.7m of hotel rooms, £627.3m of food and drink in its hotels and branded restaurants and £47.2m of other income; £2,659.3m came from the UK and Ireland and £260.9m from Germany. Its pre-tax profit of £298.4m is after £184.7m of adjusting items (group accounts to 26 February 2026, p. 172).
Category winners
Biggest by turnover
Premier Inn
£2,920m
Most pre-tax profit
Premier Inn
£298m
Highest profit margin
Premier Inn
10.2%
Fastest-growing turnover
Travelodge
+0.1%
Biggest employer
Premier Inn
32,386 staff
Highest pay per head
Travelodge
£32,000
Most turnover per head
Travelodge
£115,000
Largest net assets
Premier Inn
£3,136m
Most cash
Premier Inn
£234m
The Takeaway
- Premier Inn converts the most of its turnover. Of every £100, £10.22 reaches pre-tax profit, against £5.90 at Travelodge.
- Premier Inn is the largest on the top line, £2,920m of turnover, 2.9x Travelodge's £1,009m.
- Travelodge is growing fastest, turnover +0.1% on its own prior year. Premier Inn went backwards.
- Premier Inn is the biggest employer with 32,386 people; Travelodge pays the most per head, an average staff cost of about £32,000.
- Premier Inn has the largest balance sheet, net assets of £3,136m.
Who keeps the most of every £100 of sales?
Premier Inn keeps the most: £10.22 of every £100 of turnover becomes pre-tax profit. Travelodge keeps the least, £5.90.
Financing bites hardest at Travelodge: £22.38 of every £100 goes on interest.
Every profit figure here is the one the company filed.
The chart splits each company's turnover into £100: what goes on people, on interest and on everything else, and what is left as profit.
Out of every £100 of turnover
Each column is £100 of that company's own turnover, so companies of any size compare on one scale; the figures are pounds out of each £100, not millions. Companies run from the best margin to the worst. Payroll is staff costs, financing is interest paid, other running costs are everything else, and profit is pre-tax profit, filed or estimated as marked in the table. A loss is not an extra cost: it is the part of the costs that runs past the £100 line, marked with a red bracket. Hover over any segment for its figure.
Who is the biggest, and does the comparison hold?
By turnover the order is Premier Inn (£2,920m), Travelodge (£1,009m).
By headcount, Premier Inn leads with 32,386 employees.
The accounting periods all end within 2 months of each other. The bases differ: group accounts include the businesses a company owns, single-company accounts do not.
Turnover on the latest filing
Who is growing fastest?
Travelodge grew fastest, turnover +0.1% on its own prior year, ahead of Premier Inn (-0.1%).
Turnover change on each company's own prior year
Who employs the most, who pays the most, and who brings in the most per head?
Premier Inn employs the most, 32,386 people, against 8,769 at Travelodge.
Travelodge has the highest average staff cost, about £32,000 a head; Premier Inn the lowest, about £25,000.
Travelodge brings in the most turnover per employee, about £115,000, against £90,000 at Premier Inn. It says as much about the business model as the workforce: a marketplace or a wholesaler needs far fewer people per pound than a restaurant or a gym.
Who owns each one?
Ownership as recorded on the Companies House register of people with significant control, in the bands the register uses.
Owned by its shareholders
Listed on the London Stock Exchange, so no single controller appears on the register.
Who owns Premier Inn →
Travelodge Hotels Limited · 00769170Held by Full Moon Holdco 7 Limited
A company recorded as a person with significant control. 2 outstanding charges on the register.
Who owns Travelodge →
What does the full ledger show?
| Measure | Premier Inn | Travelodge |
|---|---|---|
| Registered name | WHITBREAD PLC | TRAVELODGE HOTELS LIMITED |
| Company number | 04120344 | 00769170 |
| Incorporated | 2000 | 1963 |
| Accounts filed | 9 July 2026 | 22 September 2026 |
| Turnover, prior year | £2,922m | £1,008m |
| Pre-tax profit, prior year | £368m | £97m |
| Staff costs | £802m | £280m |
| Payroll share of turnover | 27.5% | 27.8% |
| Employees, prior year | 34,700 | 8,864 |
| Dividends paid | £169m | n/d |
| Charges outstanding | 0 | 2 |
A figure the filing does not disclose is shown as n/d; a zero in a filing is treated as not disclosed. Rounding: below £0.1m in thousands, £0.1m to £2m to one decimal place, above that to the nearest million.
Premier Inn v Travelodge: common questions
Who is the biggest of Premier Inn or Travelodge?
Premier Inn, with turnover of £2,920m in the year to February 2026.
Which makes the most profit?
Premier Inn: £298m pre-tax in the year to February 2026.
Which employs the most people?
Premier Inn, with 32,386 employees in its latest accounts.
Premier Inn or Travelodge: which is bigger?
Premier Inn, with turnover of £2,920m against £1,009m at Travelodge on their latest filings. On margin, Premier Inn keeps more of each £100 as pre-tax profit. The full head to head is in the VS Series. Read the VS page →
Where do these figures come from?
Each company's latest accounts filed at Companies House. Each links to its full Spark Intel profile, which names the filing it comes from.