HONGKONG and Shanghai Hotels yesterday announced good interim results thanks to the near completion of the extension and refurbishment of its flagship the Peninsula.
The luxury hotel and property group reported a net profit growth of 26 per cent to $277 million, mainly driven by the increase in profit from its hotel operations.
This result would not be an effective barometer of the performance of other hotel companies in town because of the uniqueness of the Peninsula.
After two years' of disruption from the extension work, the Peninsula was finally able to post an impressive performance and acted as the main engine of growth for the first half.
The hotel's occupancy of 72 per cent was not that good - being lower than the industry average - but the fact that it could maintain such an occupancy level while charging the highest average room rate of as much as $3,168 was amazing.
The fact that business travellers made up about half of its guests shielded the hotel from the the negative impact of the drop in North American leisure travellers.
This year, the hotel's target is to obtain 60 per cent of its guests from the ranks of business travellers.