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Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) has revealed it is to launch a new upscale conversion brand as well as acquire luxury brands later in the year.
The news comes as the group published its preliminary results for the year to 31 December 2017, in which a 2.7% increase in which RevPAR, in its preliminary financial results for 2017.
Across the UK RevPAR increased 4.5%: made up of an 4.6% in the regions and 4.3% in London.
Total group revenue for the company was up 5% to $2.57bn (£1.84bn) while revenue grew by 4% to $1.78bn (£1.2bn). Operating profit also increased by 7% to $759m (£544m).
IHG now operates 798,000 rooms worldwide as the result of an additional 48,000 rooms and the removal of 7,000 rooms in the past year.
Keith Barr, chief executive of IHG, said: “In recent years, we have built a powerful and effective enterprise which has supported our transition to being fully asset light, and driven strong performance across our 5,300 hotels. Today we are announcing a series of new initiatives that build on our well-established strategy and will drive an acceleration in our growth rate.
“We moved at pace to develop and roll-out the concept for our new mainstream brand, avid hotels. Since September we have signed 75 hotels, with the first due to open later this year and a global launch being planned.”
The announcement comes as IHG achieved its highest annual organic growth across the business since 2009.
IHG will be adding to its existing 13 brands which include Crown Plaza, Holiday Inn and InterContinental Hotels.
