Britain's Whitbread said yesterday it was to spend up to 150 million pounds opening 80 budget hotels in India and that its hotels and coffee shops had boosted sales.

The firm, which runs Premier Travel Inn budget hotels, Brewers Fayre pubs, Beefeater restaurants and the Costa Coffee chain, said like-for-like sales in the 13 weeks to May 31 rose 5.6 per cent driven primarily by a 10 per cent improvement from Premier Travel Inn and a 4.7 per cent lift at Costa.

Whitbread, which is in the process of selling its David Lloyd health club chain for 925 million pounds, said it planned to create 12,000 rooms in India over the next 10 years via joint venture with Indian developer Emaar-MGF.

Finance director Chris Rogers told reporters that the firm expected to spend around £50 million in the next three years as part of the joint venture.

"It (the £150 million investment) will start fairly slowly and after three years we will have invested about a third of that."

"It's pretty even from then," he added. Chief executive officer Alan Parker said the firm had no current plans to build a chain of hotels in China, even though it is opening up Costa Coffee shops there.

Whitbread said it also planned to spend £22 million in the second half of the year rebranding its UK budget hotel business; shortening the name to "Premier Inn", putting up new signs and dressing staff in new uniforms.

Whitbread said earlier this month that it could return 450 million to 500 million pounds to shareholders following the sale of David Lloyd, on top of the 400 million it had already promised. It said it would decide on the exact amount at the time of its half year results in October.