Premier Inn Middle East

Attributable to Simon Leigh, Managing Director, Premier Inn Middle East

Rebecca Rees, Founder of Rebecomms

If you live in Dubai or Abu Dhabi, chance are there’s a Premier Inn hotel near you. We’re proud to be part of the UAE’s ever-growing hospitality scene, and are continually expanding our offerings in the country –and the wider Middle East region.

Premier Inn Middle East was born in April 2006, when mid-scale hotels in Dubai were scarce, with luxury brands dominating the market. As part of a strategy to increase hotel inventory and diversify the options available to tourists, Emirates teamed up with the UK’s leading hospitality brand, Whitbread to bring Premier Inn to Dubai. Two years later, on 8 April 2008, Premier Inn opened its first hotel in Dubai, at Dubai Investments Park.

Back then, we stood proud as the only hotel at DIP, which, over the last 15 years, has grown to become one of Dubai’s most prominent residential, commercial and industrial zones. And, just recently, we were brimming with pride again as this hotel, along with six sister hotels in the region, won the TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice Award for 2023 – a testimony to its success, popularity and quality.

We were delighted to celebrate our 15th anniversary with our beloved guests and local residents a few weeks ago. Since 2008, we have evolved to become the Middle East’s hotel brand of choice for high quality, high value accommodation. We are ever thankful to our stakeholders, guests and talented team members who are pivotal to Premier Inn’s Middle East success story, and are looking forward to marking more key milestones in the next 15 years and beyond.

Premier Inn is renowned for its warm welcome, unrivalled British hospitality, hearty food, great leisure facilities and a restful night’s sleep. The result is consistently high occupancy levels, guests that return time and time again, rave reviews and superb ratings on Trip Advisor. In 15 short years, our brand has become deep-rooted in the region, and we are firmly committed to further expansion here.

Today, we have 11 hotels in the UAE and Qatar. The opening of Premier Inn DIP was closely followed by our hotel at Dubai Silicon Oasis and Dubai International Airport. Next came our two hotels in Abu Dhabi, with the opening of Premier Inn Abu Dhabi Capital Centre and then Premier Inn Abu Dhabi International Airport. In 2016, Premier Inn Ibn Battuta Mall – our largest hotel in the region and the second largest Premier Inn in the world – opened its doors. A year later, we crossed over to Qatar, where our hotel at Doha Education City became our first property in the country, complemented three years later with our hotel at Doha Airport. In 2019, Premier Inn Al Jaddaf, also home to our regional hub, became our fifth hotel in Dubai and in the same year we opened at Dragon Mart, just a stone’s throw from the world’s largest Chinese trading and retail zone outside mainland China.

Our latest hotel – the 11th Premier Inn in the region – opened at Dubai Barsha Heights just over a year ago. This one showcases our the evolution of our brand here in the Middle East, with a new look and feel including new room designs, a new look lobby, and fresh concepts in dining destinations, and has quickly become the go-to destination for local residents looking for a night out – and of course for overnight guests from the UAE and beyond wanting superb value accommodation.

But we are not stopping at 11! With the UAE and the wider Middle East a magnet for tourists, a worldclass destination for business and leisure events, and a place that more and more people are calling home, we are always looking to expand the number of Premier Inn hotels on offer. We plan to open more properties here in the UAE and are also currently focussing on taking our brand into Saudi Arabia.

No matter what age our hotels are, they all bear the hallmarks of our much loved, award-winning brand: a convenient location, excellent value, exciting places to eat and drink, great leisure facilities such as pool and gyms and our famous good night guarantee. And we continue to enhance all of our properties here, bringing new features and upgrades to ensure we meet the standards that travellers in this region are accustomed to.

Premier Inn’s success in the UAE and Qatar would not be possible without our talented team members – the backbone of our business and reason we continue to break records and receive outstanding guest reviews.

Last month, we were proud to celebrate a year of astronomical success at our 2023 Moon & Stars Awards, with more than 30 teams and individuals recognised for their outstanding achievements and invaluable contributions to the business and brand in the region. As we marked another record year in terms of financial performance, positive guest feedback and unprecedented growth, the best of the best Premier Inn team members from our regional hub and hotels across the UAE and Qatar received accolades for their wonderful work, collaboration and creativity. Of course, all of our people are always winners in their own right, but our Moon & Stars Awards recognise those who go the extra mile, perhaps by coming up with a brainwave of a business idea or receiving the highest number of great guest reviews, and I am immensely proud to recognise their accomplishments.

At Premier Inn MENA, where our financial year runs from April to March, it’s been a record 12 months, in terms of business performance, customer reviews and exciting new initiatives. We welcomed more than 1.6 million guests across our hotels – including the legendary England and Liverpool footballer, John Barnes, who we signed as our ambassador for our 2022/2023 football marketing campaign. We also received our best-ever customer feedback, and were ranked among the top two per cent of hotels in Dubai on TripAdvisor. Plus, we successfully navigated our way through our busiest ever winter season, which included an amazing four weeks during the World Cup.

Premier Inn believes in being a Force for Good in aspects of its operations, and this includes supporting government initiatives – and spearheading our own CSR campaigns – that benefit communities, guests and team members. Our recent activities include sponsoring children’s education in The Philippines and supporting the 1 Billion Meals Endowment campaign.

In March, we marked Sleep Day by launching a sleep awareness campaign, to highlight the importance of good sleep among our team members and guests and reflect a key pillar of our brand: ‘Rest Easy’. We know that a great day begins with a good night’s sleep, and of course our high-quality beds and relaxing environment all help with that! But education and additional touches can make a big difference, too, and we want to ensure that every Premier Inn guest and team member is not only fully informed about the role of sleep when it comes to their mental and physical health, but also equipped to get the rest they need for optimum wellbeing. Unfamiliar surroundings, emergency travel, anxiety ahead of a big presentation and jet lag can all cause sleep trouble for hotel guests. Meanwhile, our team members – the backbone of our businesses who are pivotal to our guest journey – can face different sleep challenges caused by changing shift patterns, shared accommodation and other factors inherent in their line of work. Our ongoing Sleep Day campaign aims to put these challenges to bed, and highlights just some of the ways in which we take care of our customers and teams which, in turn, enhances our guests’ experiences.”

Premier Inn hotels are not only the destination of choice for overnight guests. We are also proud to welcome thousands of local residents and business people from in an around our locations for great food, theme nights and more to our much loved Mr Toad’s and Nuevo restaurants, which offer our famous all-you-can-eat breakfast, a wide range of international cuisine and of course the Great British favourites that we are renowned for. There’s always something new and exciting happening in our F&B venues: we recently celebrated International Burger Day with a fantastic creation called the Smokin’ Beast Burger, and we’re looking forward to toasting all the dads our there with some special Father’s Day deals across our venues.

With another great range of sports events, including the Cricket World Cup and Rugby World Cup, coming up, Premier Inn is gearing up for another year of big screen action, electric atmospheres and tasty food and drinks deals. Watch out for all this – and more!