Whitbread, the leisure group, has reported a 3.1% rise in like-for-like sales in the 13 weeks to 30 May, with Costa again leading the growth with like-for-likes up 8% but with flat like-for-likes in its restaurants division.
Like-for-likes in the hotels & restaurants arm grew 1.7%, with Premier Inn up 2.7%. Total sales grew 13.8%, with Costa at +24.8%, restaurants at 2.6%, Premier Inn at +12.7% and hotels & restaurants at 8.8%.
Cold weather “substantially impacted” sales at the restaurants division at the start of the year, Whitbread said, “offset by an improved performance over the last few weeks”.
Costa system sales reached £281.8m, with total franchise system sales up 21.6% to £111.8 million. UK Retail system sales grew by 20.1% to £151.5m, with equity stores delivering like for like sales of 8% aided by cold weather at the beginning of the quarter.
Costa Enterprises (including Costa Express) delivered system sales of £67.1m, up 32.6%. There are now 2,924 Costa Express units.
“We opened 39 net new UK stores in the quarter, 36 in UK Retail and three in Costa Enterprises. Internationally, system sales grew by 21.3% to £63.3m, with growth of 13.2% in EMEI and 54.3% in Costa Asia. We opened 21 net new stores including 18 in China where we now have 271 stores. We plan to open around 300 net new stores and have raised our target to 750 Costa Express units in the full year.”
Total room nights sold at Premier Inn increased 10.9% to 3.7 million and revpar in the division increased 1.7% to £42.57. It revpar premium over its competitors was maintained at £6.08 year on year, the firm said, with like for like revpar up 1% on occupancy up 0.9%pts to 76.6% and rate down by 0.2%.
Andy Harrison, chief executive, said: “Whitbread had a good start to the new financial year with first quarter Group sales up 13.8% and like for like sales up 3.1%, in line with our plan.
Premier Inn, the UK’s leading hotel chain, maintained its positive momentum growing total sales by 12.7% and like for like sales by 2.7%, against strong comparatives in the London hotel market last year.
“Our restaurants saw an improved performance in recent weeks, after a tough start to the quarter due to the unseasonably cold weather. Costa, the UK’s favourite coffee shop, has continued to perform well, benefitting from the cold weather, with total sales growth of 24.8% and like for like sales growth of 8%.
“We see no change to market conditions. Our plans for profitable organic growth are well established which, combined with our strong focus on returns, should create further substantial shareholder value.”
