INTERCONTINENTAL Hotels Group (IHG) has reported a 22 per cent spike in operating profit and a global RevPAR growth of 6.2 per cent based on preliminary results for 2010, with Asia-Pacific’s RevPAR jump being the largest of all regions at 12.4 per cent.
Within Asia-Pacific, Greater China was the group’s strongest market with RevPAR up 25.8 per cent for the year, boosted by the World Expo held in Shanghai.
Said chief executive Andrew Cosslett: “2010 was an excellent year for IHG. After a slow start to the year, the industry staged the sharpest recovery in its history, exceeding all expectations.
“We signed more rooms into our pipeline than in 2009, and despite the planned exceptional number of removals to drive up quality, we grew the number of rooms in our system, led by a 12 per cent increase in China.”
Some 24 properties were opened across 17 Chinese cities in 2010, while new hotels sprung up in key locations such as India, Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore.
IHG also signed 319 deals in 2010 – one for every working day – and now claims to have the world’s largest development pipeline with an 18 per cent share of all new hotels.
