Whitbread Plc, operator of the Premier Travel Inn budget hotel chain, aims to have "several hundred" hotels in India and China in five years time, Chief Executive Officer Alan Parker said yesterday.

 

"In our budget hotel business we're looking at the emerging markets of India and China in particular," Parker said yesterday in an interview with Bloomberg News at the Global Travel and Tourism Summit in Lisbon. "The party's just beginning, and we're going to play a pretty big role in it."

 

Whitbread will have "several hundred" hotels in the two countries in five years, he said.

 

 

(Shanghai Daily May 14, 2007)