Holiday Inn owner IHG cheers higher sales as China travel rebounds

IHG, which also owns higher-end hotels including Regent and Six Senses, said it expects to end 2023 with a ‘very strong’ financial performance.

The owner of Holiday Inn has reported growing sales and strong summer bookings as it said travel demand has bounced back to pre-pandemic levels (Alamy/PA)

The owner of Holiday Inn has reported growing sales and strong summer bookings as it said travel demand has bounced back to pre-pandemic levels.

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), which also owns higher-end hotels including Regent and Six Senses, said it expects to end 2023 with a “very strong” financial performance.

The hotels giant reported a rise in revenue per available room (RevPAR) – an important measure for accommodation firms of sales performance and how many rooms are being filled – over the third quarter.

RevPAR jumped by 10.5% in the quarter, compared to the same period last year. This was driven by growth in Greater China with room revenues soaring by 43.2%.

Looking further ahead, whilst there are macro-economic uncertainties and some short-term financing challenges holding back new hotel development, I am excited about the future for IHG

Elie Maalou, IHG's chief executive

China only began significantly loosening its strict zero-Covid policy at the start of the year.

Rooms revenue growth was also up by 12.8% compared to 2019, before the Covid pandemic, across leisure, business, and group travel.

The occupancy rate across the group, which means the proportion of occupied rooms, was 72% for the third quarter, which IHG said was just one percentage point ahead of 2019 and shows the “near-complete return to pre-Covid levels of demand”.

IHG joins rival Whitbread, the owner of Premier Inn, which earlier this week said travel demand was buoyant and that it was benefitting from a reduction of independent hotels on the market since the pandemic.

Whitbread said it was eyeing up opening more hotel rooms to take advantage of the opportunities in the market.

IHG, meanwhile, said it opened nearly 8,000 rooms across 50 hotels over the quarter and then it has added 17,000 new rooms to its pipeline of openings.

But its chief executive admitted to some “short-term, financing challenges” which he said was limiting its plans for new hotels.

Elie Maalouf, IHG’s chief executive, said: “As IHG powers forward to provide industry-leading advantages for our guests and hotels owners across our brand portfolio, loyalty programme and entire enterprise platform, we expect to close out 2023 with very strong financial performance.

“Looking further ahead, whilst there are macro-economic uncertainties and some short-term financing challenges holding back new hotel development, I am excited about the future for IHG and the attractive, long-term demand drivers for our markets.”