InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) saw its worldwide revenue per available room (revpar) increase by 5.3% during the first three months of the year.

IHG now has 3,763 hotels and 558,153 rooms after bringing 161 hotels and 22,631 rooms under the InterContinental umbrella during the quarter.

Turnover for the three months ending 31 March was up 10% from £177m to £194m. Operating profit from continuing operations was up 5% from £42m to £44m.

In the UK, Holiday Inn and Express by Holiday Inn saw revpar grow 9.2% year-on-year for the period.

The refurbishment of InterContinental London Park Lane, which the company revealed made a £3m loss this quarter, is largely complete and the hotel is expected to be fully operational by early June 2007.

Andrew Cosslett, chief executive at IHG, said: “The pace of signings of new hotels continued to be strong with almost 23,000 rooms signed in the quarter, 25% up over 2006.

“We now have over 1,300 hotels in our forward development pipeline.”

• InterContinental’s Asia Pacific chief executive Patrick Imbardelli is set to become executive director of the board on 1 July. He will retain his existing role, which he has held since 2003.

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By Christopher Walton

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