InterContinental to maintain China push despite slowdown

InterContinental Hotels, the world's largest provider of hotel accommodation, plans to open "at least the same" number of hotels in China next year as this year, even as growth in room revenue slows.

The hotel operator, which also runs the Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza brands, opened 17 hotels this year to the end of the third quarter in the mainland, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, which are its second-largest market outside the US, said chief executive Richard Solomons.

China's hotel market slowed after the government banned officials from spending money reserved for meetings on banquets or luxury accommodation, as the Communist Party battles public discontent over wasting of government funds.

The company, which first entered China in 1984, plans to hire staff and open more than 170 new hotels in the world's second-largest economy that is heading for its weakest expansion since 1999.

"We are not cutting back at all in terms of what we are doing here," Solomons said in Shanghai yesterday. "Government is not a huge piece of our business. As a good operator, if one piece of business is less, you go for another piece."

The group, known as IHG, did not raise room charges much this year, Solomons said. Revenue per available room, a measure of occupancy and rates, rose 0.7 per cent in the four markets in the third quarter from a year earlier, slowing from 4 per cent growth in the same period a year earlier, according to filings.