IHG: U.S. Growth Drives Significant 2005 Gains

InterContinental Hotels Group Plc announced this week a 7.6 percent jump in 2005 profits, highlighted by 9 percent revenue per available room growth at its 3,600 properties, driven especially by room rates in its U.S. hotels. The company's shift to becoming focused on managing and franchising also helped deliver strong earnings.

IHG, which owns such brands as Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza, said the spike in profits was stirred by the sale of many hotel assets and other non-essential interests. "2005 was a year of significant change for IHG and a number of key strategic milestones were met," said Andrew Cosslett, CEO of IHG, in a company release. "We executed on our asset disposal program to become a pure play, high-growth hotel company, managing and franchising hotels using our attractive stable of brands. The record number of hotels we currently have under development gives us confidence we can grow this business and achieve our rooms target as we look to the years ahead."

RevPAR in the United States performed particularly well brand-wide, with a 10.5 percent boost in 2005 over 2004. The InterContinental brand bested all others with a 12.6 percent hike, followed by Holiday Inn at just over 9 percent.

IHG also noted that 25,600 rooms had been added to an already robust pipeline. IHG now leads the industry in development with 108,500 rooms on the drawing board. IHG noted that the increase bolsters its prediction that it will have 50,000 to 60,000 room additions by year-end 2008.