Budget hotel chain Travelodge has signed a deal to open a new hotel above the Topshop on Edinburgh’s Princes Street.
Due to open in the summer of 2012, the £10 million hotel will have 96 rooms and will be forward-funded by Topshop’s owner the Arcadia Group.
Guy Parsons, Travelodge’s CEO, said: "Arcadia forward funding our new hotel in one of the most prestigious locations in Edinburgh just demonstrates how flexible the Travelodge development model is.
"Given the lack of new development sites in central Edinburgh this really is one of the most prominent sites left in the city and we are delighted to have secured it."
The new Topshop hotel is on a list of 22 new properties that have been announced by Travelodge, in a combined investment worth £165 million.
The hotel group will open new hotels at five London sites, plus a second Edinburgh location and two airports – Gatwick and Glasgow.
Other sites earmarked for development include Bedford, Eastleigh, Loughborough, Sittingbourne, Darlington and Kings Lynn.
Travelodge has already opened 18 new hotels during the first half of 2011, with a further 43 under development, 21 of which are due to open before the end of 2011.
Parsons said the company’s growth model had "clearly been demonstrated", with the first six months of 2011 showing the strongest growth in Travelodge’s history.
"We are not just exchanging contracts but most importantly finance is being secured upfront, to enable our developers to start on-site immediately," he said.
"Everybody knows how difficult it is to obtain bank funding at the moment, so to have financed so many new schemes must be one of the biggest success stories of the UK property industry."
www.travelodge.co.uk