Travelodge has announced that it plans to treble the size of its estate by 2020.

After 2008, the budget hotel chain plans to open around 40 hotels each year and to have opened around 1,000 by the end of the decade, targeting a 10 per cent share of the total UK hotel market.

The company, which currently has around 314 sites, plans to invest around £3.5bn in new hotels and will create around 10,000 jobs.

“Grant Hearn, chief executive officer of Travelodge, said: “The acceleration of our growth plans is extremely exciting as it enables us to capitalise on the rise in both domestic and international visits to the UK.

“As a management team, we have a great deal of experience of opening many hotels each year and we have strengthened our property division further to achieve these new goals.”

Travelodge, which is owned by Dubai International Capital, expects that around two thirds of the hotels will be newly-built and that the remainder would come from regenerating existing hotels and from converting mills, office buildings and factories.