Whitbread has revealed plans to accelerate the expansion of its Premier Inn division, which will see the budget hotel chain increase capacity by 50 per cent within five years.

The group also announced that its Costa Coffee business is to double to 3,500 sites across the world under its five-year growth milestones. It comes after Whitbread reported an 11.5 per cent increase in total revenue for the financial year to 3 March, with underlying pre-tax profits up more than a fifth to £287.1m.

Whitbread chief executive Andy Harrison said: "We see a significant opportunity for Whitbread, building on our good returns on capital and the availability of quality sites. "We are already growing faster and will add around 4,000 new Premier Inn UK rooms and around 300 Costa stores this year and we have set new five year milestones."