IHG to Double in China, Could Sell 16 Hotels

With 131 hotels in China, 146 in the pipeline and 30 opening this year, Intercontinental Hotels Group has set out to double its presence in the region by 2015, Reuters reported.

China is the group’s second largest market in terms of hotel rooms and revenue, with business outperforming all of IHG’s other markets and at levels better than those of 2008.

In April, Chinese revenue per available room grew 27.1 percent. For IHG as a whole, revPAR rose 5.2 percent.

“We are certain China will have a material impact on the group in coming years,” IHG CEO Andrew Cosslett told Reuters.

Meanwhile, IHG is waiting for the market to improve before selling its 16 wholly owned hotels, most of which are in London, Paris, Hong Kong and Atlanta, Reuters reported.

The hotels are valued at $1.8 billion. The Atlanta Buckhead is the first hotel that could be up for sale.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 30th, 2010 at 7:55 am and is filed under Lodging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.