IHG Hotels & Resorts reported a third-quarter trading update for the period to Sept. 30, 2026. Global RevPAR rose 5.3% in the quarter and 4.6% year to date.
RevPAR
Year-to-date RevPAR rose 5.6% in the Americas and 3.7% in EMEAA, and 1.0% in Greater China. In the third quarter, RevPAR rose 6.8% in the Americas and 5.0% in EMEAA, and fell 3.3% in Greater China.
Global rooms revenue on a comparable hotels basis rose 10% in groups, 5% in leisure and 4% in business. Average daily rate rose 3.9% and occupancy rose 0.9 percentage points.
Development
Gross system growth was 6.3% year over year and net system growth was 4.9%. IHG opened 12.9k rooms (92 hotels) in the third quarter, bringing the year-to-date total to 44.4k rooms (289 hotels). The global system totals 1,060k rooms (7,186 hotels).
IHG signed 21.1k rooms (164 hotels) in the third quarter, bringing the year-to-date total to 70.3k rooms (516 hotels). The global pipeline stands at 353k rooms (2,426 hotels), up 3.2% year over year and equal to 33% of the current system size.
Shareholder returns and outlook
IHG has completed $707 million of its $950 million 2026 share buyback program, reducing the share count by 3.1%. It is on track to return more than $1.2 billion to shareholders in 2026 through share repurchases and dividend payments.
IHG expects to meet fiscal 2026 consensus expectations, including adjusted EPS growth around the top end of its target of 12% to 15% annually on average over the medium to long term.
“RevPAR growth accelerated in the third quarter to +5.3% as IHG’s breadth by geography, brands and stay occasions captured increasing guest demand around the world,” said Elie Maalouf, CEO of IHG Hotels & Resorts. “Our U.S. performance was very strong, with growth across all brands. There was very good growth in EMEAA, most notably in Continental Europe and East Asia & Pacific, which included an increase in inbound travel from China. This growth more than offset a broadly flat performance in the Middle East and an easing of RevPAR in Greater China where adverse weather and changes to public holiday timings impacted demand.
“We expect another year of record development activity, and for 2026 to be our fifth straight year of accelerating net system growth. In Q3, we opened 92 hotels and signed almost twice as many, with 164 properties added to our pipeline. Development remains split broadly evenly between new builds and conversions, with each of our collection and conversion-focused brands – voco, Vignette, Garner and Noted – continuing their rapid expansion around the world.”
“Our strong performance to date and continued positive outlook for demand gives us confidence in achieving consensus expectations for 2026. This would mark the third consecutive year of delivering adjusted EPS growth around the top end of our growth algorithm target of +12-15% annually on average over the medium to long term. This is driven by the power of IHG’s enterprise platform and the ability to capitalize further on our scale, leading positions and the attractive long-term demand drivers for travel and hospitality globally.”
