The InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG) reported a 12% rise in revenue to £422m and a 5% increase in operating profits to £111m for the first six months of this year.
The group, the world's largest in terms of room numbers, said revenue per available (revPAR) room had risen by 7% in the six months compared to the same period in 2006.
IHG said the EMEA region showed "solid revPAR and profit growth."
RevPar rose across the region by 8.1% and in Europe by 6.5%.
There was slower growth in Germany after the World Cup in 2006 but the Holiday Inns and Express by Holidays Inns in the UK outperformed the continent with a 7.9% revPAR growth.
Operating profit in the region rose by 33% from £18m in 2006 to £24m this year.
IHG said the InterContinental Le Grand Paris had a 17.8% RevPAR increase and the InterContinental London Park Lane was now fully operational and trading was "encouraging."
The Group said it was "confident" it would exceed its target of between 50,000-60,000 new rooms by the end of 2008 compared with 2005.
It had opened 7,430 new rooms in the first six months of the year, signed up for a further 52,246 and there were now 187,487 new rooms in the pipeline.
In the EMEA region, development had "gained pace" with 3,181 room opening and 9,324 signings, equivalent to 51 new hotels.
These included nine of its upmarket InterContinental brand.
Andrew Cosslett, IHG's ceo, said: "The company has had a good first half. Signings continue to run at record levels with almost 55,000 rooms signed into our development pipeline.
"Strong demand with relatively low levels of new supply is driving up room rates and our brands continue to outperform the market in most of our major regions and geographies.
"Our outlook for the year is positive."
Air France KLM net rofit soars
The net profit of Air France KLM rose by 70% to €415m for the first three months of the 2007-2008 financial year.
The figure was boosted by €40m by the sale by Servair of its holding in a UK catering company Alpha and by €82m received as the latest instalment in Air France's sale of part of its stake in the GDS Amadeus.
The airline said that in the three months to the end of June, revenues rose by 2.5% to €5,945m and its operating income rose by 1% to €415m.
It said the results were was in line with its expectations and it was "on track to achieve its objectives for the Full Year of a further rise in operating income and a return on capital
employed of 7%."
It said that during the quarter, passenger activity was dynamic, especially in long haul.
Passenger traffic rose by 4% and capacity was up by 4.2%, leading to a 0.2% drop in the load factor to 81.4%.
There was a 3.4% increase in long haul passengers and "increasing unit revenues" despite a negative currency affect.
Air France KLM said total passenger revenues rose by 3.2% to €4,760m while operating income increased by 9.1% to €396m.
The carrier also confirmed it was ready to start talks with Alitalia if the troubled Italian airline was to re-open the bidding process.
Air France KLM also said it was still interested in buying the Spanish carrier Iberia for which a consortium led by BA is bidding.
* A new consortium of financiers and entrepreneurs, mainly from Italy, is considering making a bid for Alitalia, Reuters reported. The last bidding process for the airline ended in chaos after bidders dropped out one by one, several citing the over restrictive sale conditions. Despite this setback, the Italian government, which owns 49.9% of the carrier, is still keen to sell.