How Whitbread turned Premier Inn guest WiFi into a revenue stream worth more than £3m a year
Across 880 hotels and more than 90,000 rooms, Whitbread and Purple rebuilt the guest WiFi journey: branded sign-in, permission-based data capture and tiered paid plans that guests actually choose.
Average annual revenue
Guest WiFi now generates more than £250k a month in revenue across the estate
Conversion to paid WiFi
The average share of connecting guests who choose to upgrade to a paid plan
Hotels live
Rolled out across the Premier Inn estate in the UK and Ireland
Fewer support calls
After Whitbread and Purple removed friction from sign-up and payment
The challenge
Before Purple, guest WiFi at Premier Inn was a basic click-to-connect service. Guests got online, but that was all the network did: there was no data capture, no guest recognition and no view of behavior or return visits. As a channel, it was invisible to the business.
- No insight into guest behavior, repeat stays or how the network was being used
- No connection to Whitbread's CRM or marketing strategy
- No commercial value from a network the business was already paying to run
The solution
Whitbread deployed Purple's full stack across the estate: a branded guest WiFi experience with a structured login journey, permission-based data capture, and tiered paid WiFi plans with Apple Pay built into the payment flow.
On top of the connection itself, the platform layers analytics and insight, guest satisfaction surveys, e-commerce and promotional capabilities, and Purple Shield content filtering and ad blocking, so one network now serves the marketing, operations and IT teams at once.
- Branded sign-in journey with permission-based data capture at every hotel
- Tiered paid WiFi plans with Apple Pay, plus e-commerce and promotional capabilities
- Analytics, guest satisfaction surveys, and Shield content filtering and ad blocking
The results
Guest WiFi at Premier Inn now generates more than £3m in average annual revenue, over £250k a month, with more than 4% of guests converting to a paid plan. A network that was once a cost center is now a multi-million pound revenue stream.
The journey keeps improving. Whitbread and Purple stripped friction out of the experience: the password and mobile number fields came off the sign-up form, paid plan selection and payment became more concise, and an FAQs tab lets guests self-serve on common questions. Authentication rates rose by ten percentage points, and WiFi support calls fell by 25%.
- More than £3m average annual revenue, with over £250k in an average month
- Over 4% average conversion to a paid WiFi plan across 880 hotels
- Authentication rate up ten percentage points, with 25% fewer support calls
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