IHG Downplays Stalled Growth Amid Pandemic Recovery
Photo Credit: IHG's ongoing review process of underperforming Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza hotels weighs heavy on the company's rooms expansion pace. Wikimedia / Doug Kerr
Skift Take
IHG isn’t expanding at the rate of some of its competitors. The company’s review process of poorly performing Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza properties can’t end soon enough.
IHG Hotels & Resorts reported Friday its third straight quarter of essentially no net expansion to its global portfolio. But one company leader emphasized growth is just around the corner.
The company behind brands like InterContinental and Holiday Inn is still opening rooms — nearly 30,000 so far this year — but enough hotels are exiting the IHG network where the company hasn’t seen any annual net growth in recent quarters. New room signings in IHG’s Americas region are roughly half of 2019 levels.
Leaders at IHG, which is undertaking a review process of roughly 200 underperforming Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza hotels, maintain the company can return to the strong growth momentum seen before the pandemic.
“Remember that there is quite a long lead time for a deal to go from when an owner starts to get interested in doing a signing with us to actually getting ink on a page and a legal contract in
