InterContinental Hotels Group Q3 RevPAR plummets on HK protests

(Sharecast News) - InterContinental Hotels Group disappointed investors with its third quarter trading update, reporting much lower than expected growth in its key metric of profitability, revenues per available room, in the wake of the mass protests in the special Chinese administrative region of Hong Kong.
The protests in HK saw RevPar crater by 36.0%, driving a 6.1% fall for the Greater China region, instead of the 2.2% drop which analysts at Morgan Stanley had penciled in.

In turn, total RevPAR shrank by 0.8% at constant exchange rates (Morgan Stanley: -0.1%), while at the prevailing exchange rates it fell by 1.9%.

RevPAR in the US meanwhile was down by 0.6% and in Europe, the Middle East and Africa it rose by 0.2%.

The hotels group also reported a smaller than expected year-on-year increase in its net system size of 4.7% to reach 865,000 rooms (Morgan Stanley: 873,000), with management stating that openings were impacted by a later phasing than in the comparable year ago period.

For the full-year, the company said that it remained on track for net system size growth in excess of 5.0% (Morgan Stanley: 5.7%).

InterContinental also said that adverse trading conditions in HK were expected to result in the loss of roughly $5.0m in fee income.

However, that would be offset by an approximately $10.0m favourable impact from non-recurring items including significant liquidated damages and accounting treatment relating to IFRS 16.

As of 0805 BST, shares of InterContinental Hotels Group were trading down by 2.26% to 4,630.0p.

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