Whitbread reports 7.1% jump in sales at Costa Coffee chain

Hotels and restaurants group Whitbread has reported a 7.1 per cent increase in third-quarter sales at its Costa Coffee chain.

The group has more than 2,200 Costa outlets around the world, and sales at its Asia operations soared 80 per cent according to today’s trading update.

At its Premier Inn hotels chain, like-for-like sales were up 2.5 per cent – although revenues per available room dipped 0.9 per cent, Whitbread said this compared with a decline of 11.4 per cent across the wider “economy and mid-scale” market.

Chief executive Andy Harrison said: “The economic environment remains challenging with no change in our background consumer market. We are on track to deliver full year results in line with expectations.”

Karl Burns, analyst at Shore Capital, expects Whitbread to report a pre-tax profit of £346 million for the full year.