Britannia Hotels returns to profit as sales rise 300%

Britannia Hotels returned to profitability for the year ended 31 March 2022, with sales up by 300%.

The company, which has been voted the UK’s worst hotel chain for the last ten years, posted a pre-tax profit of £33.4m.

This was up from a pre-tax loss of £9.5m in 2021, which was fuelled by a 68% reduction in sales in that year.

Turnover rose to £117,847, up from £38,311 the previous year.

Britannia has received a decade of bad reviews from consumers taking part in the annual Which? survey of hotel chains.

Emergency services were called to several incidents at Britannia-operated hotels last year. In November, two people were taken to hospital with head injuries after part of the exterior of the Grand Burstin hotel in Folkestone collapsed.

And in September, 120 guests were evacuated following a fire at the Trecarn hotel in Torquay.

Britannia operates 64 UK hotels and acquired the Midland hotel in Bradford from Peel Hotels in April.

The company said it would continue to prioritise maintaining occupancy levels and managing operating costs to “exploit further investment in new properties” and tackle “increased risk[s] of losing major sales accounts to competitors”.

It said it employed “tight controls” on costs, particularly around staffing, “to sustain the company’s “competitive position”.

The average number of employees grew slightly from 1,765 in 2021 to 1,818 in 2022, while directors’ renumeration rose from £254,662 in 2021 to £300,000 in 2022.

For the year ahead, Britannia Hotels said it would focus on managing increased fuel costs, carbon consumption and the use of water, gas, and electricity across its sites.