Whitbread pledges tech investment

Whitbread, the company behind brands such as Premier Inn and Costa Coffee, is planning to ramp up its spend on technology as part of a £10m programme, which has already seen it boost online and mobile strategies.
The company, which today reported a 16.5% rise in profits to £411.8m for the year to February 27, said online bookings for Premier Inn now account for 85% of transcations, with 77 % made directly on the site.
Three years ago, the group appointed Havas EHS to ramp up CRM activities across its entire brand portfolio – including Beefeater, Brewers Fayre, Premier Inn and Costa Coffee – as part of plans to build stronger customer relationships.
“[We will] increase our revenue investment in technology and process improvements as we evolve our systems to support future growth,” Whitbread said. “Over the last four years we have substantially upgraded our online capability, growing our online reservations as a proportion of total bookings from 67% to 85%.”
“We are investing in our technology and have recently launched a new mobile website for Premier Inn as well as a new iPhone app to improve customer conversion.”
These improvements form part of a £10m investment, which also includes refurbishing Premier Inn hotel rooms.
Whitbread signed a multi-million pound business process outsourcing deal with Steria in February last year, in a bid to cut annual service costs by 14%.