Author: Chandini Monnapal
(Reuters) – Holiday Inn owner InterContinental Hotels Group (NYSE: ) on Friday reported a 2.6% rise in first-quarter room revenue and said it continued to expect leisure travel demand to remain strong.
Hotel chain owners including InterContinental Hotels Group have benefited from a boom in travel over the past year, although some U.S. hoteliers expect a slowdown this year.
“Travel remains key to what people want to do,” Chief Executive Elie Maalouf said on a media call.
“EMEAA (Europe, Middle East, Asia and Africa) performed impressively, growing by almost 9%,” Maalouf said in a statement.
Maloof added on the call that Japan’s strong performance was due to a combination of factors, including a weaker yen, increased travel around the Lunar New Year holiday and an easing of travel restrictions in the region compared with previous years.
Japan’s room revenue increased by 16.9%, the Middle East, continental Europe and the United Kingdom achieved growth, but the United States’ room revenue growth fell by 0.3%
Maloof laid out his strategy in February to achieve high-single-digit growth in fee-based revenue by increasing revenue per room and hotel count on average annually over the medium to long term.
Last month, InterContinental Hotels Group announced a long-term agreement with NOVUM Hospitality that will double the number of IHG hotels in Germany to more than 100 hotels.
However, shares in the London-listed company, which operates more than 6,000 hotels worldwide, were down 1.27% at 7,788 pence as of 0742 GMT.
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Jefferies analysts said in a note that first-quarter results deviated slightly from our expectations and consensus. IHG’s first-quarter revenue grew 2.6%, below Jefferies’ forecast of 3.4% growth.
The owner of the Regent and Crowne Plaza hotel chains said its occupancy rate increased 2 basis points in the first quarter of 2024 and total system size increased 5%.
