Today in a UK first, London’s biggest hotelier, Travelodge has opened the first ever hotel above a comedy club.

Bethnal Green Travelodge, a 131-room hotel which represents an £11million investment has been built above Lee Hurst’s iconic Backyard Comedy Club - which over the years has hosted many well known comedians.

To mark the opening of the UK’s first comedy club hotel partnership, Travelodge is introducing loo laughs – a toilet roll which is printed with a selection of funny jokes and cartoons to keep customers entertained and laughing whilst visiting the loo.

In support of the company’s loo laughs toilet roll, the budget chain surveyed 2,000 Britons to seek their views on reading in the bathroom. Key findings revealed that just under half (49%) of Britons like to read on the toilet. Interestingly this is a more popular pastime with men as a third reported they read on the loo whilst just a fifth of women stated they do.

Eight out of ten respondents stated reading on the loo alleviates boredom and three quarters of adults thought loo roll printed with jokes was a good idea.

The nation’s favourite bathroom reading material includes: newspapers, magazines, journals, business publications, TV guides and comics. 

The research also revealed Britain’s biggest loo readers can be found in the following locations: London, Chelmsford, Oxford, Cambridge and Southampton.

Shakila Ahmed, Travelodge Spokeswoman said: To celebrate the opening of the UK’s first comedy club hotel concept, we thought it would be a fun and novel ideal to introduce joke printed toilet roll; so that customers can continue to giggle whilst visiting the loo.” 

At the Bethnal Green Travelodge opening, the company also announced it location target list for a further 145 hotels across London. The target list includes locations such as: Westminster, Camden, Southwark, Lambeth, Islington, Ealing and Greenwich.

The Travelodge target list of 145 new hotels would create nearly 4,000 new jobs across the capital and boost the local economy annually by £290million*