InterContinental Hotels confirms outlook as China growth accelerates

(Alliance News) - InterContinental Hotels Group PLC on Thursday reported "very strong" trading in the first quarter of the year, saying any hit to travel and hotel stays from the conflict in the Middle East will be more than offset elsewhere, leaving the company confident of meeting consensus growth and profit expectations for 2026.

Windsor, England-based IHG owns the Holiday Inn chain and others and is one of the largest hotel operators in the world with significant exposure to the US and China.

Its shares were up 3.1% to USD150.40 early Thursday in London, giving the company a market capitalisation of USD21.86 billion. The stock is up 30% over the past 12 months.

IHG said revenue per available room rose 4.4% globally in the first quarter. This beat market expectations. Bank of America and Jefferies had forecast 3.9% RevPAR growth for IHG, while JPMorgan had modelled 3.1% growth.

IHG said business was strongest in the Greater China and Europe, Middle East, Africa & Asia regions, with RevPAR up 5.7% and 5.6%, respectively. It was up 3.6% in the Americas.

By customer type, comparable revenue was up 7% for group travel and 6% for business travel, though just 1% for leisure travel.

Average daily room rate rose 2.0%, while occupancy was up 1.5 percentage points, IHG said.

Chief Executive Officer Elie Maalouf said IHG saw "further acceleration" of growth in Greater China after the return to growth there in the fourth quarter of 2025. Meanwhile, its "diverse" EMEAA region performed well despite challenges caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran.

"Looking ahead, our comparable on-the-books global revenue for Q2 indicates continued growth, with the impact of the Middle East conflict and some wider disruption to international travel flows expected to be more than offset by increases in demand elsewhere," Maalouf said.

He added: "While still early, our confidence of achieving full year consensus growth forecasts and profit expectations is underpinned by the strength of our performance year-to-date."

IHG said it continued to expand the business, with net system size growth of 5.0% on a year before and 0.9% in the year to date. It now operates 1.0 million rooms in 7,014 hotels globally.

The company said it will return more than USD1.2 billion to shareholders in 2026 between dividend payments and its USD950 million share buyback programme, which was announced with IHG's annual results back in February.

By Tom Waite, Alliance News editor

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