On Friday 15th March, the Chief Executive of London’s biggest hotel brand, Grant Hearn, officially opened the first ever UK hotel above a comedy club in Bethnal Green and also announced the Company’s location target list for a further 145 hotels across the capital. Bethnal Green Travelodge, a 131-room hotel which represents an £11million investment has been built above the iconic Backyard Comedy Club. Comedian Lee Hurst previously owned the site and agreed with its redevelopment in return for a purpose built comedy club on the ground floor to replace the one that would need to be demolished. The Backyard Comedy Club is set to reopen next month and will continue with its tradition of being a must-visit location for touring comedians in London.
At the hotel’s official opening ceremony alongside the MP for Bethnal Green & Bow, Rushanara Ali, Grant Hearn, made the announcement that Travelodge is looking to expand further across the capital with an intention to open a further 145 hotels across London boroughs.
As London’s biggest hotel brand, Travelodge currently has 59 hotels (7,633 rooms) across the city, it employs 1650 staff members across the capital. This year, as well as Bethnal Green, Travelodge will open a further three hotels in London at the following locations: Hounslow, Vauxhall and Walthamstow. These hotels combined represent an investment of £34 million and will create 80 new jobs across the capital.
Travelodge’s new location target list includes key London growth areas such as: Westminster, Camden, Southwark, Lambeth, Islington, Ealing and Greenwich. For the full target list please see notes to editors.
The Travelodge target list of 145 new hotels will create nearly 4,000 new jobs across the capital and boost the local economy annually by £290million*
Grant Hearn, Travelodge Chief Executive said: “The London hotel market is the strongest in the world and our target location list reflects its growth potential. We were proud to be the largest hotel brand in London for the Olympics but that was just the beginning for Travelodge.”
“There is a clear need for good quality, budget hotel rooms in central London as many of the existing B&B’s and hostels offer inadequate accommodation, poor value and extortionate prices.”
“Our research has highlighted that London’s suburbs are the capital’s hot spots for potential growth. Many London boroughs have large employment clusters and impressive regeneration proposals yet have an undersupply of hotel rooms. For instance, we have recently opened a number of hotels in locations such as Enfield and Greenwich, who are enjoying regularly full occupancy.
Grant Hearn, continued: “We are glad to be playing a role in the continuing redevelopment of Bethnal Green. Located just one stop from the City and two stops from Stratford, we believe this hotel will become one of our strongest performing hotels in London.
“We are also delighted to be located above Lee Hurst’s iconic Backyard Comedy Club. Over the years it has hosted many household name comedians and we are sure many of the comedians and their audiences will choose to stay at our hotel.”
To mark the opening of the UK’s first comedy club hotel partnership, Travelodge is introducing loo laughs – a toilet roll which is printed with a selection of funny jokes and cartoons to keep customers entertained and laughing whilst visiting the bathroom.
