The Times - UK (2022-01-13)

42 Thursday January 13 2022 | the times

Business

and the power to influence the success

or failure of businesses because they

control access to digital markets.

The proposals impose obligations on

large platforms such as Google to

allow third parties to co-operate with

their services in certain situations and

not to prefer their own services in

rankings, in the hope that market

abuses can be prevented and new

players can enter.

Margrethe Vestager, the European

competition commissioner, has been

seeking to tackle the power of the big

technology companies in recent years,

particularly platforms that use their

dominance in one market to move into

others. She has called the proposals

“pro-innovation” that will give a

“chance to smaller businesses”.

Google’s take appears to be that the

rules could harm small businesses by

making it harder for them to reach

customers, for example because of a

proposed ban on targeted adverts.

Google pressures Brussels

over new technology laws

Google is hoping to influence Euro-

pean Union officials and politicians

with a slew of eleventh-hour lobbying

intended to water down the bloc’s over-

haul of technology laws.

Executives at Alphabet, parent com-

pany of the search, advertising and

software group, hope to weaken

elements of the Digital Markets Act

posing the most risk to its trade, it has

been suggested. A rush of social media

posts related to the new laws show that

bosses at Alphabet’s headquarters in

California are “waking up” to the risks

posed by the rules, the Financial Times

reported, quoting a “Google insider”.

The proposed regulations, due to be

implemented in 2023, are intended to

improve competition in digital services

by curtailing the power of “Big Tech

gatekeepers” — search, retail and social

media companies whose platforms are

accused of having monopoly positions

James Hurley

Whitbread claimed yesterday that its
Premier Inn chain had “significantly
outperformed” the British hotel
market, although rising costs were
putting pressure on the business to
raise its prices.
The FTSE 100 leisure group said that
like-for-like accommodation sales in

Premier in league of its own,

declares confident Whitbread

the 13 weeks to November 25 — its third

quarter — had been 5.5 per cent ahead

of 2019 levels and that recent trading

remained resilient, despite the

emergence of the Omicron strain of

Covid-19.

However, it conceded that there had

been low levels of forward bookings in

January and February, generally its

quietest months, while the latest coro-

navirus variant also had had an effect

on its business. In the six weeks to Janu-

ary 6, UK sales fell by 4.4 per cent on

2020 levels, while food and drink sales

slid by 17.2 per cent.

Alison Brittain, 56, the Whitbread

chief executive, said that the company

was maintaining its forecast that

revenue per available room — or rev-

par, the key industry metric — would

“recover to pre-Covid 19 levels during

2022”. She said that cost inflation for

next year was expected to rise by 7 per

cent to 8 per cent, or up to £110 million,

but Whitbread expected largely to off-

set the rise through cost efficiencies,

openings and higher room prices. The

average room rate for its UK hotels in

the third quarter was £64.84, with rev-

par of £52.78.

Brittain cited higher labour costs,

rising energy bills and an increase in

construction costs on new hotels, esti-

mating that inflation would affect

£1.4 billion of its 2023 cost base.

Whitbread has about 30,000 em-

ployees, but 10 per cent are off work

because of Omicron infections. She

said that the company paid staff with

the virus or isolating 80 per cent of their

normal salary.

Whitbread, which was founded by

Samuel Whitbread as a brewery in 1742,

sold its beer business in 1999. It has 870

hotels in Britain, Germany and the

Middle East and runs 400 Beefeater,

Brewers Fayre and Table Table pub res-

taurants.

In October, Whitbread’s Premier Inn

chain said that it was taking on 2,000

UK hotel employees after strong

summer trading because of the stay-

cation boom. Only a year earlier,

Whitbread had announced up to 6,000

redundancies in its hotels and restau-

rants, but it later pared that figure to

1,500, partly thanks to the extension of

the furlough scheme and progress on

vaccines.

In the third quarter, Whitbread said

that its UK accommodation growth

was 14.9 points better than the wider

market, driven by strong leisure

demand, although growth was partially

offset by an 11.1 per cent fall in food and

drinks sales. Its 32 trading hotels in

Germany recorded occupancy of

59.9 per cent, up from 47.5 per cent in

the second quarter.

The group said that sales growth in

its UK hotels had risen by 5.1 per cent on

2020 levels, again outperforming the

market. However, lockdowns in Ger-

many had cut occupancy there to

36 per cent in the latest six-week period.

Shares of Whitbread fell by 57p, or

1.8 per cent, to £31.42 last night.

Dominic Walsh

O

ne of Britain’s biggest

property agents says

this year’s profits will

be “very significantly

ahead” of forecasts

amid resilient demand for swanky

houses (Tom Howard writes).

The pandemic encouraged many

Savills goes

wild in the

country (and

in London)