Hospitality giant Whitbread has announced 1,500 jobs cuts at its restaurant business as it looks to convert dining spaces into hotel rooms or offload them.
The owner of Premier Inn and Beefeater revealed the shake up in conjunction with its financial results for the year ending February.
Whitbread said profit before tax grew to a record 36 per cent to £561m, helped largely by sales and bookings at its over 800 hotel sites across the UK>
During the year, the no-frills accommodation provider opened 2,253 UK rooms and closed 386 rooms, leading the firm to have 12 per cent of the market share in the hotel space.
However, its food and beverage arm which includes Beefeater, Bar + Block and Brewers Fare chains, sales were two per cent behind last year’s figure.
The company said it will optimise the underperforming business by converting 112 sites into hotels, and selling 126.
Whitbread said the decision would help it unlock 3,500 new rooms accelerating its target of 97,000 open rooms in the UK by 2029.
Dominic Paul, Whitbread’s chief executive, said the transition will impact job roles at some of its sites
He said: “We recognise that our transition will impact some of our team members so we will be providing support throughout this process and we are committed to working hard to enable as many as possible of those affected to remain with us.”
“The short-term impact on our profit performance this year will be more than offset by an uplift from FY27 with further increases thereafter in both margins and returns as we open more of the new extensions.”
Whitbread raised its dividend by 26 per cent to increase in the final dividend per share to 62.9p.