Nov. 20–The boss of the world’s biggest hotels group has warned growth could slow due to the impact the downturn is having on both business and leisure travellers.
Richard Solomons, chief executive of InterContinental Hotels Group, which owns the Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza chains, said: ‘The economic travails are not behind us and short-term growth could be more muted’.
He was giving an update on strategy yesterday a few weeks after reporting a sharper than expected fall in growth in the United States.
The firm, which has more than 679,000 rooms in over 4,600 hotels in nearly 100 countries, was affected by the US government shutdown and also the timing of public holidays.
Solomons was upbeat on the long -term prospects for the group, but said: ‘Clearly we went through a tough time post Lehman and while 2014 is in a different environment we still see pressures in terms of the global hotel industry.’
InterContinental (down 17p to 1860p) is opening 100 hotels in China under its new Hualuxe brand and is testing a new concept in the US called Even Hotels, focused on health and wellbeing.
It is also testing a system to track customers’ mobile phones when they are on their way to its hotels, with their permission, to anticipate the timing of when they are likely to check in.
Solomons said the Government is doing the right things to boost the economy. ‘Relaxing the visa requirements for Chinese visitors will make a difference,’ he said. ‘A lot of what they have done has helped to make it easier for them to come to the UK.’
By 2020 there will be more than 150m travellers from the People’s Republic. He said: ‘However, the biggest driver of hotel revenues is gross domestic product ? but we can’t drive economic activity ? we can just ensure our brands are the preferred ones and that we increase market share.’
