LONDON (Alliance News) - EasyHotel PLC, one of the portfolio of companies launched by billionaire entrepreneur Stelios Haji-Ioannou, said it traded in line with its own expectations in both its owned and franchised hotels in the financial year just ended.
The hotel operator, which listed on London's AIM market earlier this year, said it is working on a new multi-lingual website to improve international bookings, which it said will make it easier for overseas visitors to book and simplify the booking process on mobile devices.
"We believe that there are a number of opportunities to improve owned and franchised revenues which we will be implemented in the coming months, and we will continue to maintain our tight cost discipline," said Chief Executive Simon Champion in a statement.
EasyHotel said it has been considering a number of potential site acquisitions in recent months, as well as a potential "corporate transaction in considerable detail". However, it said it decided not to go ahead with the transaction, and as a result will book around GBP230,000 in one-off costs relating to its decision to withdraw from acquisition.
"There is a steady supply of new opportunities and management is confident of delivering against their stated owned hotel roll-out strategy," it said.
The company's financial year ran to the end of September.
EasyHotel opened or refurbished a number of hotels during the period, including the opening of its Glasgow 125 bedroom easyHotel, which it said has already reached high levels of occupancy, achieving 84% occupancy in the three months to end of September.
It said its third owned hotel, a 103-bedroom Croydon easyHotel, is on track to open on budget in November, and said the franchised 132-bedoom Frankfurt easyHotel will open on December 1. It also said its franchised Prague easyHotel is under construction and is scheduled to open in Spring 2015.
"We remain excited about the growth potential of our strong brand, driven by our unique international customer base and the increasing number of business customers looking for a value hotel proposition," said Champion.
The company said it will announce its full-year results on December 9.
By Rowena Harris-Doughty; rowenaharrisdoughty@alliancenews.com; @rharrisdoughty
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