This month Travelodge is opening seven hotels with four of the sites being located in London, making the budget hotel chain the largest hotelier in the capital for the Olympic Games. At a combined investment value of GBP 36 million, these new openings (in Balham, Enfield, ExCel and Woolwich) will mean that Travelodge has 54 hotels in London (7,024 rooms) and has hit the target it set three years ago of becoming the largest hotelier for the start of the Olympic Games. These four new hotels have created 117 jobs across London and all new recruits have been hired from the long term unemployed. Travelodge currently employs 1,400 staff across the capital. Being the largest hotelier now, does not mean that Travelodge will ease up on its development plans in the capital. A further four hotels are set to open after the Olympics with five scheduled to open in 2013, providing a total of 1,015 additional rooms. Travelodge's development team has also identified another 50 locations across London that would be suitable for a new hotel. The reason for the expansion by Travelodge is that there is an under capacity of budget hotel rooms in London. A recent report by hotel industry analyst Melvin Gold has identified that in the capital just 17% of the hotel supply is provided by the branded budget sector, compared to over 28% in UK cities such as: Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Glasgow. Grant Hearn, Chief Executive of Travelodge Hotels, said: "To be London's largest hotel brand at the start of the Olympics is an achievement that everyone in the business is proud of. Our growth strategy for the capital is not however based around the Olympics. We have long recognised that London has a shortage of good quality, affordable hotel rooms, not just in the centre but also in the suburbs. "We will be opening a further four hotels in London after the Games and five more next year. We are also actively looking for a further fifty sites across the capital to ensure that we can meet the clear demand there is for affordable hotel rooms." As well as the four hotels in London, Travelodge is also opening hotels in July at Hemel Hempstead, Cheshire Oaks and Tamworth. These openings will create 60 new jobs.
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