Travelodge, the UK’s first budget hotel brand, is expanding its Spanish portfolio with five new hotels, adding 635 rooms to cater to business and leisure travellers.

Travelodge has expanded its presence in Spain by opening five new hotels in Alicante Puerto, Barcelona del Valles, Madrid Alcala de Henares, Malaga Aeropuerto and Murcia, adding a total of 635 rooms to its portfolio.

The hotels, which began operations under the Travelodge brand on 31 May, were acquired from Louvre Group. This addition enhances Travelodge’s Spanish portfolio, offering more choices for business and leisure travellers seeking quality, affordable accommodation across the country.

Travelodge’s expansion is part of a strategic development plan announced last year, based on extensive research by Christie & Co. The research highlighted Spain as a top global destination with a rapidly growing hotel market, but identified a gap in branded, budget-friendly accommodation in the midscale and economy segments. Travelodge’s long-term fixed lease model, which has been successful in the UK, aligns well with the needs of investors seeking stable income streams in Spain’s booming tourism industry.

Steve Bennett, Chief Property and Development Officer at Travelodge, stated,

We are delighted to expand our offering across Spain by opening these new hotels, including our first hotels in Alicante, Murcia, and Malaga, as well as adding to our existing estate in Madrid and Barcelona. Each location is carefully selected to suit the needs of the modern business and leisure traveller, and we look forward to welcoming our guests at these fantastic new additions to our growing hotel portfolio.

Travelodge has identified 20 target locations for further expansion, including major cities like Barcelona, Madrid, and Valencia, as well as popular tourist destinations such as Seville, Bilbao, and Palma Mallorca. This strategy aims to fill the gap in quality, affordable accommodation in these areas.

The management team in Spain, led by Ángel Beleño, who has extensive experience in the hotel sector, is focused on leveraging Travelodge’s established brand and operational expertise to grow its presence. Beleño joined Travelodge in 2013 and became General Director for Spain in 2014, bringing valuable insights from his previous roles at Meliá Hotels International and Barceló Hotels & Resorts.

With nearly four decades of expertise in operating budget hotels, Travelodge is well-positioned to offer investors and landlords a reliable long-term income stream in Spain, either through lease agreements or acquiring freeholds. Travelodge’s successful model and strong brand promise significant opportunities for further expansion in the Spanish market.

For more information on Travelodge properties in the UK or Spain please contact your Global Travel Management Account Manager.

Travelodge, the pioneers of the UK budget hotel sector, have announced they are evolving their core brand product to a new ‘budget-luxe’ premium look and feel design – whilst maintaining their great value price proposition.  

The new design has been created on the success of the group’s budget chic hotel format, TravelodgePLUS with feedback from the company’s largest consumer study – which surveyed around 5,000 UK business and leisure travellers to find the psychographics of the modern budget traveller.

Key findings revealed that modern travellers crave style, choice and little homely touches to make it easier to work, rest and relax both inside and outside of the room.

In response to this consumer insight, the Travelodge interiors team have remodelled their core product with a new budget-luxe design that includes all the low cost efficiencies you would expect from Travelodge but with the added benefit of thoughtful, stylish design and, homely touches throughout its interiors.

This is underpinned by the introduction of a new signature rich navy blue brand colour which pays homage to the first iconic Travelodge blue brand colour- chosen for its calming and uplifting qualities.

The Travelodge budget-luxe design also includes a number of sustainable initiatives. This includes the new carpet being made from recycled fishing nets which are part of a project supporting clean ocean initiatives, tackling over 640 000 tonnes of discarded fishing nets currently impacting marine life. The carpet backing is also made of old plastic bottles. Every ten of these bottles which are recycled rather than being sent to landfill saves enough energy to power a laptop for 25 hours.  Other features include low energy lighting, motion sensing controls and aerated showers and taps

The group intends to roll out its new budget-luxe design across its UK estate and has kick-started this programme with a multi-million pound investment to upgrade 60 hotels this year in popular business and staycation destinations across the UK.  Five of these hotels will be completed in April 2022, including three hotels in London at Southwark, Vauxhall and Wembley as well as Southampton and Thame (Oxfordshire) close to Travelodge’s headquarters.    

Craig Bonnar, Travelodge Chief Executive said: 

Travelodge has been a trailblazer within the UK hotel sector since it opened the UK’s first budget hotel in 1985. We are once again evolving by launching a new ‘budget-luxe’ premium look and feel hotel design whilst maintaining our great value price proposition.

This is our most radical transformation to date and has been created in response to ever increasing expectations from customers.

Thoughtful, stylish design and homely touches really matter in today’s world when staying away for business or leisure.