I don’t remember when I first stayed in a Travelodge. And isn’t that, well, sort of the point?
You recall the big moments in your life, of course (and if those overlap with this budget-hotel stalwart, my sympathies). But mostly you remember the things that go spectacularly, wretchedly wrong.
Rock-solid, ubiquitous, no-nonsense Travelodge rarely occupies that territory. And that’s because it does the basics extremely well.
I like the prosaic clarity of the name. I like the crepuscular glow of the logo that may or may not be a nod to the smog of the nearby ring road. I like that it has no delusions of grandeur (“Premier”, I tell you!). And instinctively I find myself gravitating to one of its frills-free outlets when the eyelids start to droop and the stomach starts to rumble.
Rarely is there not a room available (the Nativity scene would have played out very differently just off the M62); when you’ve got more than 45,000 rooms, spread across nearly 600 hotels, that’s perhaps not a surprise.
It’s comfortable, it’s clean, it’s secure and staff don’t try to make friends with you, or follow you around, as they tend to in swankier hotels.
I can’t profess to ever wishing to extend my stay — and certainly not for an aggregate of 22 years, for which Sheffield retirees David and Jean Davidson achieved notoriety in 2007. But nor am I counting the seconds in the wee small hours whilst staring wide-eyed at the ceiling.
I like that it runs discount promotions of mind-boggling scale: a million rooms for £29 or less for Black Friday in November, for example — take the kids with you (up to the age of ten, Leicester Central might as well be Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons) and that’s just over seven quid a head. The marketing can be pleasingly edgy, in fact. “Other hotels in Plymouth fleece you, we prefer duvets”, from 2004, didn’t win them many friends in the West Country.
What about the food, I hear you wail? Well pick your Travelodge wisely and a three-course meal no longer means one dish from each of the rows of the lobby vending machine. Two hundred Travelodges now have an on-site Bar Café (that “call a spade a spade” thing again). I dined in one last month: a super little chicken katsu curry; followed by an indecently good apple crumble pie with shortcrust pastry, custard and caramel. The whole thing cost me £12.95.
That was at its London City Travelodge, near Liverpool Street, where the tables and booths were doing brisk business with contractors and middle-manager business-types. The staff were bubbly, efficient and helpful. Some characters, too; “The breakfast is all you can eat until 10am,” explained manager Pedro, proudly stroking his paunch.
In fairness, it was a Travelodge Plus, the chain’s “budget chic” offerings, the first of which opened in 2018. My “Super” room had trendy pixel wall art. It had an in-room Lavazza coffee-pod machine. It had a king-size Sleepeezee Dreamer bed. It had a “raindance” shower.
The whole stay, in fact, was borderline memorable.
Careful, Travelodge.
Travelodge has room-only doubles from £32 and SuperRooms at its Travelodge Plus branches from £42 (travelodge.co.uk)
A hotel is many things to many people. Sometimes it is a destination in its own right — somewhere to rest, relax, steal interior design ideas. Sometimes it is simpler than that. A convenient roof over head, a place to recharge self and phone, to leave your wedding-guest best in a crumpled heap.
In the same way that Ryanair allows us to get somewhere cheaply then spend more on post-arrival fun, so Premier Inn gives us somewhere reliable, soundproofed and perfectly decent, at a price that you don’t begrudge even if you only spend 30 waking minutes there.
I doubt if Premier Inn will thank me for that comparison, so I should also point out that not only do you get significantly more leg room in a Premier Inn, but also that I’ve never heard of CEO Alison Brittain mooting the idea of pay-as-you-go loos.
Still, in both instances the numbers speak for themselves. In Premier Inn’s case, they’re saying “UK’s largest hotel chain”: 832 hotels, with more than 85,000 rooms — 701 at the Gatwick North branch alone.
I can’t say I love the corporate colour scheme — a purple school blazer takes a lot of getting over — but if you ignore staff uniforms and the nursery-rhyme moon-and-stars logo, it’s used sparingly. And I can cope with a purple stripe in a carpet when I’m paying £76, as I did a few weeks ago, for a family room with free tea and coffee, free wi-fi (hear that, Travelodge?), a well-lit mirror with sensibly placed hairdryer (hear that, all hoteliers?), a comfy Hypnos bed, and Instagram-me views of the historic Worcester county cricket ground and the misty Malverns beyond.
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In terms of extra bang for buck, Worcester’s Premier Inn is no one-off, either. Yes, there are plenty of PIs on ring roads and roundabouts, but there are also those like London Southwark (Bankside) whose unlovely name belies its brilliant location on the Thames, right next to Borough Market. And I kicked myself for booking the Travelodge in Marlow’s town-adjacent industrial estate rather than the mock-Tudor PI right in the thick of things by the war memorial.
In terms of extra buck, you can upgrade to the tune of about a tenner for one of 2,000 Premier Plus rooms, where you get whizzier wi-fi, a better class of tea and coffee, a comfier desk chair and fragrant corridors that smell of posh hotel.
Or, in London and Edinburgh, there’s the Hub by Premier Inn spin-off, which gives you excellent wi-fi and high-tech lighting controls, and, at the Westminster Abbey Hub, a fridge-magnet landmark at the end of the street. The trade-off is a smaller bed, teeny window and, instead of an in-room kettle, free hot drinks in the bar/lounge/co-working space. A stuff-yourself breakfast is just £7. The modern-day Alan Partridge doesn’t bring a 12-inch plate, he brings a Thermos.
It’s understandable that a company this size has its detractors. Keswick, St Davids and Thurso are among the towns where news of an impending PI has been met with local opposition. And in the past the company has come in for criticism over low pay.
Nevertheless, staff everywhere are lovely, and they’re loyal. Chand, the manager at the 99-room Borough High Street branch in south London, has worked for the company for 16 years. He says he likes the way the staff are looked after, and feels confident selling the product. The fact is, it rather sells itself.
Premier Inn has room-only doubles from £35 and Premier Plus doubles from £49 (premierinn.com)
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