Travel & Leisure
Whitbread owns Premier Inn, the UK's largest hotel brand, and is expanding the business in Germany. It is simplifying the estate by reducing exposure to branded restaurants and concentrating capital on hotel-room growth and higher-return opportunities.
Operation and development of Premier Inn hotels, selected restaurants, property ownership and development, and expansion of the Premier Inn brand in Germany.
The United Kingdom budget-hotel market and the developing German hotel market.
Hotel occupancy, room rates, RevPAR, business and leisure travel, UK room expansion, German profitability, cost savings and property optimisation.
Travel downturns, weaker consumer demand, labour and energy costs, German execution risk, property costs, competition and activist shareholder pressure.
18 June 2026: Q1 FY2026/27 UK accommodation like-for-like sales grew about 2%, with forward bookings in both the UK and Germany ahead of the prior year. Whitbread is closing its remaining standalone branded restaurants, cutting planned capital expenditure and targeting substantial long-term shareholder returns, while activist Corvex is pressing for faster value creation.
Whitbread pays dividends twice yearly and supplements them with buybacks where cash permits. The FY2025/26 final dividend was 60.6p per share, ex-dividend 21 May 2026 and paid on 3 July; together with the 36.4p interim, the full-year dividend was 97.0p.
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