Premier Inn Hotel Chain: Business Environment and Structure Analysis

This report analyses the organisational structure and business environment of Premier Inn, a leading hotel chain in the UK. It explores the hierarchical structure of the company, highlighting its benefits such as departmental loyalty and clear accountability, as well as drawbacks like potential for defensive management and bureaucracy. The report uses SWOT analysis to assess Premier Inn's strengths (brand image, market position), weaknesses (limited global reach), opportunities (post-pandemic travel demand), and threats (competition from private rooms and hostels). Additionally, PESTLE analysis examines the political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors impacting Premier Inn's operations, including government schemes, economic downturns, changing customer preferences, technological advancements, and environmental regulations. The report concludes that Premier Inn faced significant challenges during the pandemic but can leverage its strengths and government support to recover and capitalize on emerging opportunities, while also addressing its weaknesses and mitigating potential threats.

Premier Inn Hotel
Chain

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Organisational Structure of Premier Inn Hotel................................................................................3
Benefits of hierarchical structure to Premier Inn...................................................................3
Drawbacks of hierarchical structure to Premier Inn...............................................................4
Business Environment Analysis of Premier Inn Hotel....................................................................4
SWOT Analysis......................................................................................................................4
PESTLE Analysis...................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Business organisation is undertaken as the formal structure which is being framed by group
of individuals or a person to perform the specific commercial activity with the objective of
earning profitability. There are several types of organisations who tends to deal in various kinds
of work like buying and selling of products, software services, tours and travels and many more
(Albliwi and et. al., 2017). A hospitality firm deal in offering services like rooms, entertainment,
food and beverages and so on. For this, it can be analysed that the aim of this particular sector is
to create the feeling of welcoming others through entertainment and proper comfort. The report
is based on the case study of Premier Inn which is the largest hotel chain in UK and also have
presence in more than 800 locations. Hotel tends to provide premium services and also focus on
maintain their standards. The owner of Whitbread hotel established in 1987 as travel Inn which
was renamed as Premier Inn in 2004. After the pandemic, that impact their sales and profitability
that would be recovered till the year of 2024 (expected). The report leads to analyse the
organisational structure through several techniques that identify the different environmental
forces which impact the operations of company.
Organisational Structure of Premier Inn Hotel
The organisational structure depicts the different ways in which the duties are assigned and
suitable information is passed to the number of members of an organisation. It tends to decide
the roles, accountability and responsibility of workforce. Further, Premier Inn hotel work as per
the hierarchical structure as the whole organisation is classified into different levels with pre-
defined objectives. As per this structure, a pyramid is created in which the orders and
information flows from top to bottom.
Benefits of hierarchical structure to Premier Inn
 Loyalty among departments: Within the hierarchical structure, different departments are
developed and these units create the sense of loyalty and spirit among the members of
company (Schüritz and et. al., 2017). Through this, they tend to make sure that the
workforce of Premier Inn is task oriented and work towards the accomplishment of
organisational goals.
 Eliminate indecisiveness: In this structure, each and every individual know about their
roles and responsibilities as no one can escape from their responsibilities not even the

manager. This structure is helpful for Premier Inn in terms of tracking the several
activities and quality of work so that the right individual can be responsible for the
mistake.
Drawbacks of hierarchical structure to Premier Inn
 Create defensive managers: This structure tends to make the managers quite defensive
by which they are reluctant to share the workforce of their department with the supervisor
or manager of other team (Stenvall and Virtanen., 2017). This can create the departmental
approach in the mind set of workforce of the Premier Inn instead of organisational
approach.
 Create bureaucracy: This structure leads to develop bureaucracy within the premises of
an organisation which is not even advisable in the dynamic situations. If Premier Inn
force to opt the hierarchy for the information even in the situation when the decisions are
needed to make in quick manner, then it will lead to hamper the overall growth of an
organisation as the details would not be delivered at the appropriate time.
Business Environment Analysis of Premier Inn Hotel
The business environment depicts the group of all the activities, people and other factors that
include internal and external factors which impact the overall performance of business. Some of
these factors are controllable in nature as other out of the control from the organisation. It leads
to keep things change as the respective hotel need to keep an eye over the business environment
and concerning risk factors so that they can take corrective actions.
SWOT Analysis
This framework leads to analyse the internal environment of the business and also helpful for the
company to get proper benefits of this environment. It is classified into four major factors which
are discussed as underneath in terms of Premier Inn hotel:
 Strengths: The benefit of a business is their workforce that helps in fighting with several
challenges and also take advantage of the concerning opportunities to prevail things in
the market. Premier Inn operate its hotel chain from the long back and also created their
overall image by offering premium services to their customer base (Eleni Jelastopulu and
George Charalambous., 2017). This brand image is helpful for the company in terms of
getting their customers back after the pandemic and also achieve the same profitability as

it was before COVID-19 pandemic. It is the UK’s largest hotel brand with more than
50,000 rooms and also nearly 700 hotels as it is highly advertised chain of hotels. Several
deals and offers for the customers are also provided for the online booking.
 Weaknesses: These are considered as the limitations of any organisation to pull them
back in the competition. Premier Inn is the multinational hotel which is located in few
countries but on the other hand its competitors are covered under the wider geographical
level (Braun., 2019). It is the biggest weakness of hotel as it would not be able to take the
benefit of post pandemic condition where the large number of people tends to make plans
for their vacations and also demand best hotels in several countries. The major weakness
of this hotel is the intense competition for the brand that means the small margins and the
global presence is not as elaborate as the international hotel chains (Premier Inn SWOT
Analysis, Competitors & USP, 2020).
 Opportunities: These are considered as the occasions for company where the business
can things to defeat their competitors and develop itself. In present times, people of
several countries are stepping out of their places for the vacation just to relax them from
the conditions of pandemic and lock down. Premier Inn has the opportunity to attract
large number of customers by offering them best offers and also enhance their overall
services. Further, the more strategic tie-ups can become major opportunity for the
company by investing within the digital marketing. They are also required to develop
brand value by the effective customer experience (Premier Inn SWOT Analysis,
Competitors & USP, 2020).
 Threats: These are the forces that can cause issue for the business and it is required to
analyse the overall threat in the desired manner and time to save the firm from any other
difficulty (Yang and et. al., 2020). The threat of COVID-19 virus is not gone yet and due
to this, Premier Inn need to make sure that all the safety measures are taken in an
effective manner. Even the single case of COVID-19 within the hotel can close the doors
of whole hotel chain. The major threat for the respective hotel is the private rooms and
the backpacker’s hostels as they can easily acquire the market of Premier Inn.
PESTLE Analysis
This analysis is useful in analysing the overall impact of external factors on the operations of
business so that the several strategies can be developed on that particular basis and the effective

outcomes is properly analysed. There are several external factors which are discussed below by
organising the PESTLE analysis on Premier Inn:
 Political: These factors tend to identify the political decisions which are taken by the
company. For this, “eat out to help out” scheme was launched by the government of UK
in order to help the Premier Inn to attract maximum number of customers towards it. In
regard of this, travelling gets ban in the several countries that can hamper the overall
growth of the business as the hotel is not able to get customers from the several countries
(Delanoy and Kasztelnik, 2020).
 Economic: This factor undertakes the number of sources like exchange rates, customer
charges and so on and also the global pandemic also disturb the whole world and the
hotel sector that has been hit at the huge level (Eleni Jelastopulu and George
Charalambous., 2017). The government also help Premier Inn by reducing the taxation
rate for some time it is the most impacted business of the country which is the hotel
sector (PESTLE Analysis for Hotel Industry, 2019).
 Social: It leads to analyse the attitude and culture of several people considering their
educational level, age, choices and so on. In present time, most of the customer demand
premium number of services with good quality and the Premier Inn tends to deal with it
as it is helpful for the hotel to attract maximum number of customers (Albliwi and et. al.,
2017). But after COVID-19, the popularity of branded and good hotels also gets
increased but most of the companies are not able to create prominent supply because of
their limited global location (PESTLE Analysis for Hotel Industry, 2019).
 Technological: It undertake every kind of innovation, technological change and R&D
that impact the operations of company. For this, Premier Inn take the opportunity of
several automated kitchen appliances which are available within the market and also
enhance the overall efficiency (PESTLE Analysis for Hotel Industry, 2019). For this,
social media platform is useful for Premier Inn as it helps in enhancing the overall
popularity but it also can harm the image if someone posted negative review of hotel.
 Legal: These factors tend to identify the impact of different laws in terms of governing
their overall operations of the sector. Premier Inn need to follow all the norms and
regulations which are related with the nutrition within the food and beverages as in return
it leads to create value of their product (Schüritz and et. al., 2017). In regard of this,

company need to make sure that they never breach their laws and norms otherwise it
company can face some serious legal consequences.
 Environmental: These factors undertake the changing environmental policies, weather,
climatic conditions and man more that leads to impact the sales of several sectors
particularly the tourism and food sector (Stenvall and Virtanen., 2017). When coming
towards the leisure activities, customers want a hotel that can provide them comfortable
environment and Premier Inn take care of their demand by offering them premium
services. Here, the threat of virus in the environment is still make people reluctant to stay
within the hotel (PESTLE Analysis for Hotel Industry, 2019).
CONCLUSION
From the above discussion, it has been analysed that the Premier Inn has suffered a lot in the
particular situation of the pandemic as the lock down was announced by the government and the
threat of virus tends to close the doors of whole hospitality sector. For this, the post lock-down,
an organisation has the opportunity to use their strengths and overall experiences of such things
undertaking the long time to flip the situation from bad to good. They can also use several
schemes in attracting the number of customers and also retain old ones with them. Here, the firm
also take benefits of several schemes which has been launched by the government to boost the
demand of sector. The hierarchical structure which is being followed by Premier Inn is useful
and need proper information on the time by creating proper coordination among the several roles
and responsibility. The biggest weak point of this hotel is that it leads to cover limited locations
in few countries as the business needs to enlarge their geographical reach if they want to defect
their competitors.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Albliwi, S. A. and et. al., 2017. Implementation of Lean Six Sigma in Saudi Arabian
organisations: findings from a survey. International Journal of Quality & Reliability
Management.
Braun, B., 2019. Building global institutions: the diffusion of management standards in the
world economy–an institutional perspective. In Linking industries across the world (pp.
3-28). Routledge.
Delanoy, N. and Kasztelnik, K., 2020. Business Open Big Data Analytics to Support Innovative
Leadership and Management Decision in Canada. Business Ethics and Leadership. 4(2).
pp.56-74.
Eleni Jelastopulu, M. D. and George Charalambous, M. D., 2017. The Perspectives of Patients'
Organisations on the Provisions of the Health Services Memorandum in
Cyprus. International Journal of Caring Sciences. 10(3). pp.1265-1275.
Schüritz, R. M. and et. al., 2017. Datatization as the Next Frontier of Servitization-
Understanding the Challenges for Transforming Organizations. In ICIS.
Stenvall, J. and Virtanen, P., 2017. Intelligent public organisations. Public Organization
Review. 17(2). pp.195-209.
Yang, R. and et. al., 2020. Public and private blockchain in construction business process and
information integration. Automation in construction. 118. p.103276.
Online
Premier Inn SWOT Analysis, Competitors & USP. 2020. [Online] available through:
<https://www.mbaskool.com/brandguide/tourism-and-hospitality/14052-premier-
inn.html>./
PESTLE Analysis for Hotel Industry. 2019. [Online] available through:
<https://pestleanalysis.com/pestle-analysis-for-hotel-industry/>./