Pre-tax profits for the InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG) for the first quarter of 2007 dipped slightly to £55m compared to £66m for the same period in 2006.
Operating profit for the period also fell from £67m in 2006 to £60m this year and full profit for the three months also showed a drop from £53m in 2006 to £47m in 2007.
The figures are before exceptional items.
But Andrew Cosslett, IHG's ceo, said that the hotel chain had had a "good first quarter" with continuing revenue up 10% from £177m to £194m and continuing operating profit, after exceptional items, up 5% from £42m in 2006 to £44m in 2007.
He said that total gross revenue from all IHG hotels was up 13% and global revenue per available room (revPAR) up 7.6%.
The strongest growth in revPAR was in the EMEA region where it rose 13%.
This was driven by an increase in occupancy and a 9.5% rise in room rates.
The revPAR rise in continental Europe was 10% with a 13.4% rise in France and an 8.5% rise in Germany. The French figure included a 15.7% rise in revPAR at the newly refurbished InterContinental Le Grand Paris.
IHG said that in the UK, its Holiday Inn and Express by holiday Inn brands recorded 9.2% rises in revPAR.
Its London flagship hotel, the InterContinental Park Lane has just finished a major refurbishment and is expected to be fully operational by June. The hotel made a £3m loss during the first quarter.
In the EMEA operating profit from continuing operations more than doubled to £7m. Losses on owned and leased hotels were cut from £3m to £2m while profits on managed hotels stayed the same at £8m.
Mr Cosslett said that the pace of signings of new hotels continued to be strong with almost 23,000 rooms signed in the quarter, 25% up over 2006.
"We now have over 1,300 hotels in our forward development pipeline. Trading is healthy around the world and once again we outperformed in our major markets in the quarter. Our outlook for 2007 remains positive," he said.
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