Whitbread’s Premier Inn brand has claimed the accolade of best known hotel brand in Britain, knocking Hilton off the top perch.

The most recent quarterly update on the British Hotel Guest Survey, just published by BDRC Continental, shows Premier Inn on 58 per cent unaided awareness among business travellers, and so ahead of Hilton for the first time ever in this market segment, albeit just by a single percentage point. 

Hilton previously had been the number one brand for top of mind awareness in the business market since 1996, when it eclipsed Forte.

Among leisure market travellers Premier Inn reached the top spot for unaided hotel brand awareness for the first occasion in the comparable quarter in 2012 and in the most recent report has stretched its lead in this segment, with a score of 66 per cent, to six points over nearest rival Travelodge, with Hilton now in third place.

For actual hotel brand usage Premier Inn and Travelodge are now the top two players in both the business and the leisure travel segments; this is the first time this has been recorded. 

Tim Sander, head of hotel brand monitoring services at BDRC Continental, commented: “While it has taken some time for the sheer distribution of the leading budget hotel brands to be reflected in consumer perceptions, now that Premier Inn and Travelodge are at the top of the pole they will take some shifting and the course of the market appears set for some time to come.”