Speaking at a Q&A session following the release of the hotel group’s interim results, Solomons, who became chief executive on 1 July, said although the riots were ‘concerning’ and may have a short term impact on the industry, they would not deter visitors to the capital for the forthcoming world event.
“The government’s got to get to grips with it and sort it out. It’s got to be dealt with quite quickly, but it’s obviously very concerning right now,” he said.
“What we’ve seen before with these sorts of events is that the market recovers very quickly as people sort of get used to these things and travel again.”
Positive start
IHG, operator of seven hotel brands such as Holiday Inn, Hotel Indigo and luxury London hotel InterContinental on Park Lane, reported a positive start to the year with revenue up 10 per cent to $850m (£520m), and operating profit up 23 per cent to $269m (£165m) for the six months to 30 June 2011.
Global revenue per available room (RevPar) grew 6.7 per cent, with Greater China up 12.7 per cent and the USA up 8.2 per cent, partly due to the Holiday Inn re-launch there.
RevPar in the EMEA region went up 5.3 per cent excluding Egypt (10 hotels) and Bahrain (2 hotels) where the political unrest resulted in significant declines.
In all the operator, which is the official hotel partner for the 2012 Olympics, opened 122 hotels and signed for a further 148 during the first half of the year.
Mobile future
IHG said its recent development of booking applications for iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry and Windows are proving useful for the group with $10m of bookings currently being made through them per month.
“We expect this to grow quickly as consumer booking preferences evolve,” Solomons said.
Solomons said the group’s priorities for the future are to develop its brands, invest in its people and strengthen revenue delivery systems.
“Whilst we continue to monitor the uncertain economic outlook, we look forward with confidence in the currently favourable hotel trading environment of record demand and low supply growth in many markets," he said.