Whitbread reports huge first-half profits slump after Covid crisis forces hotel closures
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Whitbread, the owner of Premier Inn, has slumped to a loss of £725m in the first half of its financial year and warned that bookings had slowed since regional lockdowns were imposed in October.
The UK’s biggest hotel operator, which also owns the Beefeater and Brewers Fayre pub-restaurant chains, has been hard hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, which triggered a 99% collapse in sales during the national lockdown in the spring.
