IHG Hotels & Resorts saw its hotels across the EMEEA region perform most strongly in the third quarter of 2024.
Revpar at EMEEA hotels was up 4.9%, ahead of the Americas up 1.9%. In contrast, hotels in greater China saw a poor performance, where revpar was down 10.3%. Chinese occupancy was down 2.1% to 64.9%, while room rates were 7.4% softer. The company blamed “adverse impacts from shifts in the timing of public holidays and the typhoons in September”.
Continued strong growth
During the quarter, the company signed 129 new hotels, totalling 19,200 rooms, taking its global pipeline to 327,000 rooms. It opened 98 hotels, up on the previous quarter and ahead of its pace a year prior. In Europe, that opening pace was helped considerably by a portfolio deal IHG signed with Novum Hospitality, adding a slew of new hotels that are being quickly converted to IHG brands including Holiday Inn and Garner.
“Our development performance was particularly notable,” declared chief executive Elie Maalouf. “We opened 17,500 rooms across 98 hotels, well over double the same period last year, which was in part due to the next to 6,200 rooms of the Novum Hospitality agreement joining IHG’s system. Quicker to market conversions represented over 50% of openings and 40% of Q3 signings, a clear reflection of the strength and appeal of our brands and wider enterprise to owners, and we’ve also seen the advance in new-build signings over the course of the year as developer confidence continued to improve.”
In China, IHG is shrugging off shorter term weakness in hotel performance, as it continues to drive growth in the region. The company opened 27 hotels in the region, growing its greater China portfolio by a net 9.6% year on year, and signed 40 more into its development pipeline. It expects 2024 to be one of its best ever years for hotel launches, and new signings in China.
A commitment to growth in China
So strong has been IHG’s commitment to growth in the Chinese market that the group developed its own Chinese-oriented brand, Hualuxe. A list of upcoming openings, due in the next few months, includes the 450 room Hualuxe Beihai Silver Beach; 290 room Hualuxe Chongqing Science Hall; and It will further add to this growing brand’s portfolio with a 2025 opening of the 200 room Hualuxe Handan, and 276 room Hualuxe Haining.
Among the strong China pipeline are several projects under the group’s luxury InterContinental brand. These include the InterContinental Taichung, where a 206 room hotel is scheduled to open in the coming months. Also under construction are a hotel in Nanchang, InterContinental Wuhan, Zhengdong, Guangzhou and Xi’an Datang West.
