IHG announces new CEO and positive business results in the first quarter of 2023

Keith Barr,  CEO of InterContinental Hotels Group since July 2017, announced that he will step down on June 30 and will be succeeded by CEO of the Americas, Elie W. Maalouf, on July 1. In addition, he shared with Maalouf the complete report on the results that the first months of the year produced in the hotel chain. 

“We had a really strong start to the year, the revPAR (revenue per available room) of the group increased by 33% versus 2022 and 6.8% versus 2029. We are close to 6,200 hotels open, which represents a net system growth of 4.2% year after year. We signed one hundred and eight hotels, increasing the pipeline by 3.3% and opening 45 hotels. And it really serves the strength and appeal of Our Brands from a growth perspective. We are definitely on our way. So it was great to see how we started globally,” said Keith Barr.

In addition, the hotel chain faces some economic uncertainty, but that is holding back new construction development and, in turn, generating some growth acceleration in some places.

As for the Americas, revPAR is skyrocketing 18% at 2022 levels and 11% compared to 2019, and the occupancy rate is very strong thanks to a great start to the year, a strong spring break, period commercial demand, government demand and return group demand. 

In addition, IHG opened 15 hotels and signed another 54 in the quarter. And also included was the opening of the first Vignette Collection hotel in Washington DC and the signing of the first Regent property on Santa Monica beach.

 Beyond the US market, signings in Mexico and Canada account for 20% of total signings in the Americas and the first quarter compared to around 10% last year. 

In addition, strong business performance was realized in places like the Middle East, the UK and Australia. And the luxury lifestyle was 2/3 of the signings. 

Jumping to Greater China, a region that rebounded with the lifting of restrictions, on December 22, it was up 75% compared to 2022 and is now down just 9% compared to 2019, indicating an incredible recovery.

What happens to the results against IHG's competition?

If you think about net system size growth, Hilton was at 4.7% year-over-year versus our 4.2%. IHG RevPAR growth was 33% so we are head to head with Hilton 30% and Marriott 34.3%. But Marriott's net system size is 3.1%, so it trails IHG at 4.3%. 

“We are right where we need to be in terms of overall growth. Windham and Accor are growing as well, but you can really see that we've had a very strong relative format. We always have to do better in terms of seeing how we can accelerate growth and accelerate RevPAR recovery, but we've had really strong performance overall,” Barr concluded.