Travelodge Joins Aldi to Develop Joint Hotel, Supermarket Sites

By Lenka Ponikelska

Oct. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Travelodge Hotels Ltd., the U.K. budget hotelier owned by Dubai International Capital LLC, has teamed with German retailer Aldi Group to develop joint supermarket and hotel sites in the U.K.

Travelodge will develop a 74-bed hotel above Aldi's store in Newquay, which is expected to open in autumn 2009, Travelodge said in an e-mailed statement today. It is due to open another hotel with 55 beds adjacent to Aldi's site in Middlesbrough at the end of November.

Travelodge will invest 2 million pounds ($3.5 million) in the Middlesbrough project and 2.9 million pounds at Newquay. The hotelier said it will recruit 20 employees for each site.

``By developing sites together with Aldi, we are sending a clear signal that the budget sector in the U.K. is going to make the most of the opportunities presented in the economic downturn,'' Travelodge Managing Director for Development Paul Harvey said in the statement. ``The credit crunch is freeing up sites for development that previously would not have been viable for either of us.''

Aldi, based in Essen, Germany, owns the freehold of both sites and Travelodge will take a lease, according to the statement.

To contact the reporter on this story: Lenka Ponikelska in London lponikelska1@bloomberg.net