With room rates not expected to return to growth until 2004 and average room rate (ARR) growth of 2.6 per cent, 2.5 per cent and 3.4 per cent forecast for the UK, London and the provinces respectively,1 one would expect consumers to be looking for bargains and being less concerned with hotel amenities. The burgeoning performance of the budget hotel sector, such as Travel Inn reporting a 6.1 per cent increase in like-for-like sales, occupancy of 82.4 per cent, ARR of 39.98 and an increase in operating profit of 10.8 per cent in Whitbread’s 2002–2003 annual results, illustrates the resilience of the budget sector.