Business customers looking for budget hotel rooms helped Whitbread, owner of Premier Inn and Costa coffee shop chain, post a 7 per cent rise in like-for-like sales.

The company said today that comparable revenues at Premier Inn budget hotel chain rose by 10.2 per cent in the six months to August 14, after Whitbread captured business from rivals as customers looked to trade down.

Whitbread, which recently announced a swap deal with pubs firm Mitchells & Butlers to offload restaurants in return for hotels, said business travellers now accounted for 60 per cent of its revenues at Premier Inn.

The increase in corporate customers pushed average revenue per room up 5.8 per cent, as business travellers stay longer and spend more.

Whitbread has opened 14 new Premier Inns this year, incorporating 1,157 rooms, and is on course to add 4,000 rooms to the estate this year, taking the chain up to 40,000 rooms in 570 hotels across Britain.

The group’s pub restaurants business, which includes Brewers Fayre, Table Table and Beefeater, reported like-for-like sales up 4.4 per cent

Whitbread said it had responded to food and energy inflation by improving operating efficiencies and putting lower-cost options on the menu.

However, the company's Costa coffee operation saw a slowdown in like-for-like sales growth, at 3.7 per cent against a 6 per cent increase during the first quarter.

Whitbread moved to reassure that the fall in growth came against tough comparatives last summer.

However, there are fears that the Costa business may be the first of the divisions to feel the pinch amid a downturn as consumers cut down on discretionary spending.

But Whitbread said: “We are well aware that times are tough and are keeping our eyes open.”

Shares in Whitbread were up 3 per cent to £11.54.

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