IHG Outlines Growth Plans for High-Priority Global Markets

InterContinental Hotels Group predicted “an era of unprecedented opportunity and sustained growth” for the company as it responds to favorable socio-economic trends in high-priority markets such as China, India and the Middle East. The company, which operates brands such as InterContinental, Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites, believes it is “wonderfully placed” to take advantage of favorable economic trends in new and emerging markets. These include rapidly growing and shifting populations, heavy investment in infrastructure and significant GDP growth.

These economic trends are prompting unprecedented increases in domestic and international leisure and business travel. This is in turn increasing demand for hotel accommodation, especially for larger branded players who are expected to outstrip demand for non-branded hotels by a factor of three.

IHG has identified several key opportunities. In Greater China, IHG said it believes the Chinese hotel room market will overtake the U.S., which is currently the world’s largest, in 2025, and will become twice the current U.S. size by 2039. The next 20 years will see almost an eightfold increase in IHG’s rooms in Greater China. This means the company will offer 360,000 rooms and its hotel owners will employ 325,000 people (currently the worldwide IHG number) in China alone.

In the Middle East, the region’s GDP is outpacing the rest of the world and offers superb revPAR opportunities. IHG already enjoys a market leader position and aims to open 38 new hotels across the region in the next four to five years. And in India, IHG has been in India for 48 years and now aims to triple its size in next three years, opening 150 new hotels by 2020.