(Adds details on occupancy and demand from media call)
April 27 (Reuters) - Premier-Inn owner Whitbread
posted a 1 billion pound ($1.39 billion) annual loss on Tuesday
but said it expects a significant bounce in staycation demand
this summer as COVID-19 curbs in Britain are relaxed.
Whitbread, which also owns the Beefeater, Brewers Fayre and
Bar + Block chains, said revenue for the year ended March 31
slumped by nearly three quarters, sending its shares down 3% in
morning trading.
Britain's hospitality industry has suffered during the
pandemic, with travel and entertainment spending severely
restricted by government measures to stop the spread of the
virus.
Britain's latest lockdown is still being eased, with hotels
and cinemas not set to open until May 17 at the earliest,
according to a four-stage plan https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-factbox-idUSKBN2AM207
set out in February.
The UK's COVID-19 vaccination programme, under which more
than half of Britons so far have been given at least one shot,
would support the return of leisure guests to Whitbread's hotels
in tourist locations, Chief Executive Alison Brittain said.
"We will definitely be hiring in the summer for seasonal
work for coastal destinations that are going to be full," she
said on a call with journalists. Coastal and other tourist
locations make up about 15% of Whitbread's hotels.
Brittain also said the company expects to add about 4,000 to
5,000 new rooms in the UK and Germany over the next year to take
advantage of post-pandemic opportunities in markets where
smaller players may not have the resources to grow.
The company, which has the bulk of its business in the UK,
said that more than 92% of its hotels in the country are now
open after occupancy levels across all its hotels declined to
23% in January and 29% in February.
Whitbread reported a statutory pretax loss of 1.01 billion
pounds ($1.40 billion) for 2020, compared with a profit of 280
million pounds a year earlier. The adjusted loss was 635.1
million pounds, compared with a company-compiled consensus of
688 million pounds.
Sales fell 71.5% to 589.4 million pounds, compared with an
average analyst estimate of 616 million pounds.
($1 = 0.7201 pounds)
(Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru; editing by Kirsten
Donovan and Sayantani Ghosh)
Whitbread (WTB)
