Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) is growing capacity at its fastest rate since the financial crash in 2008.
The company, the world’s largest hotel operator by number of rooms, has added 16,000 rooms to its pipeline of new hotels during the third quarter of 2015 - Its best quarter for signings in seven years.
IHG, which owns major brands including Intercontinental and Holiday Inn, reported that RevPAR rose 4.8 per cent in the quarter, compared with 5.8 per cent in the first half of the year and 5.1 per cent in the year to date.
IHG CEO Richard Solomons said the third quarter results are positive for the future growth of the company.
“The results demonstrate both our ability to drive growth through leveraging scale and execution against our winning strategy to create long term value for shareholders,” said Solomons.
“There is increasing momentum across our portfolio of preferred brands. Holiday Inn delivered a record level of room openings, and we are expanding our global luxury footprint, particularly in Greater China where nearly a quarter of our 5k room signings in the region were driven by InterContinental Hotels & Resorts.”
He added: “We continue to expand the presence of our newer brands, including our second franchise signing for EVEN hotels in the US, and five signings for our industry-leading boutique brands.”
IHG also announced it’s on track to deliver a next generation Guest Reservation System for roll out in 2017, including development of new cloud based technology.
In August, IHG was reportedly ready to bid for rival chains Movenpick and Fairmont.
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