A Norfolk-based hotel boss is aiming to take on budget hotel chains such as Premier Inn and Travelodge as part of a no frills strategy to grow the business.

Tony Burlingham, owner of MJB Services Team Ltd, which owns five hotels in Norwich, including the Beeches, one in Dereham and apartment blocks in King's Lynn, Watton, Attleborough, and Oulton Broad, said he returned to the business after retiring three years ago with a plan to create a business with a �5m turnover by the end of next year.

The strategy is centred on a no frills service using the website Latebookings.com, which has also seen staff numbers dramatically cut as customers access the rooms themselves after being emailed a security pin number.

With guests able to post comments both good and bad online, he has also had to fend off some complaints about the quality of the rooms and accessibility. The 45-year-old said he was also looking to dispose of other parts of his property portfolio which he leases out, including St Giles House, the Wine Lodge and the Roger Hickman restaurant, to focus solely on the hotels and apartments businesses.

But he insisted the shift away from the traditional hotel model was paying dividends and was not a sign of difficult economic times, with rooms regularly sold out.

Key customers include workers staying during the week, women nightclubbers and weekend theatre goers, and he admitted the no frills approach may rattle cages within the industry.

'We are going to double revenue and bookings on last year,' Mr Burlingham said.

'February has been our third best month ever. We are getting bigger and getting more rooms year on year. I have doubled my turnover, while the rest of the hotel industry is struggling because we have come back in. We have 120 bedrooms in Norfolk, I am the biggest independent retailer there is. I am doing 6,000 room nights every month. If you put one and a half people in a room that means 10,000 people are going through MJB. That's a lot of people

'This is the way the industry is going. We can compete with Travelodge and Premier Inn because they are the same as us. We will be on 300 bedrooms by the end of the year, 120 will be serviced apartments, and 180 will be hotel rooms.

'We aren't doing food, and we aren't doing frills, we rent the rooms out, the only thing we worry about is people in the bedrooms. I think that the three star market is dead.

'You are going to have operators like me, and you are going to have your five star hotels, I can't see there being much in the middle.'