Whitbread is by no means the most exciting company on the market, but it has set itself some exciting growth ambitions and shows every sign of achieving them. Its Premier Inn hotel chain, boasting 55,000 beds at present, wants to get to 75,000 by 2018 and has the extra space contracted to do so.
Meanwhile, it wants to gain business from the independent hoteliers that control a little more than half the market — Premier Inn’s share is about 8 per cent to 9 per cent, so there is plenty to go for.
The Costa Coffee chain wants to double sales to about £1.3 billion by 2016, moving towards £2 billion two years later. It has the advantage that, unlike the hotels market, which is