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Hotel and restaurant group Whitbread has announced six new Premier Inn hotels in London at a cost of £100 million as it prepares for an influx of visitors for the Olympics.

Whitbread has agreed to acquire the Quality Hotel (Westminster), Comfort Inn (Kensington) and Purple Hotel (City of London) from the Real Hotel Company (RHC) for £18.5 million in cash, adding 400 new rooms.

An additional £12 million will be spent converting them to Premier Inn hotels and in addition, Whitbread has first right of refusal to buy the remaining 12 Purple hotels from RHC should they go up for sale.

Premier Inn is also developing three new build hotels at Waterloo, Ealing and Old Street in the City, which are scheduled to open by 2011, and will add a further 800 rooms. Whitbread will spend £70 million on the developments.

Alan Parker, chief executive of Whitbread, said: "We have exciting expansion plans for Premier Inn in London and today's addition of 1,200 rooms is a great start.

"Our further pipeline will position us as the largest hotel chain in London with at least 8,500 rooms before the Olympics in 2012."

The plans will increase the total number of Premier Inn rooms in the capital to 6,500, with a further pipeline of 2,000 rooms expected to be announced over the next 12 months. Together, these will represent an increase of 60 per cent to Premier Inn's London estate.