InterContinental Posts Net Profit Decline In First Quarter

InterContinental Hotels Group announced on Wednesday, its net profit declined by about 33 percent in the first quarter. The loss coincided with its revamped Holiday Inn brand. However, the company gave a positive forecast for the future. British-based InterContinental revealed that net profit declined by 34 percent – at 31 million pounds for the three months leading to March 31, in comparison with year ago figures from 2007.

CEO Andrew Cosslett told the media after the results were published, that the credit market crisis roiling financial markets had very little effect on the hotel groups business. Despite the gloom and doom about the economy in the press, he added, InterContinental was able to sign-up new clients and perform well business-wise. The hotel group, which also owns the Crowne Plaza, saw losses partly because it was not able to repeat gains from the year before. In 2007, Intercontinental had made gains from disposing its investments.

InterContinental also reported that sales were up by 15.3 percent at a total of 226 million pounds from January to March 31, when compared to year-ago figures from 2007. The hotel group was mostly unaffected by the global credit crunch as it booked close to 20,000 new rooms for its customers across the world in the first quarter of 2008. The figure added to the hotel group’s overall pipeline to 231,553 rooms, which is equal to 1,720 hotels. Most of the growth stemmed from its operations in the Americas.

Surprisingly, in its development pipeline alone, Intercontinental opened about 190 hotels and recruited over 400 other hotels.

www.ichotelsgroup.com