Company to double size in China, India, Middle East; Chinese hotel market to become number one by 2025 and next twenty years 'an era of unprecedented opportunity' for hotel industry.

IHG plc, the world's largest hotel company by number of rooms, today predicted "an era of unprecedented opportunity and sustained growth" for the company as it responds to favourable socio-economic trends in high priority markets such as China, India and the Middle East.

The company, which operates leading brands such as InterContinental, Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites, believes it is "wonderfully placed" to take advantage of favourable economic trends in new and emerging markets. These include rapidly growing and shifting populations, heavy investment in infrastructure and significant GDP growth. These are prompting unprecedented increases in domestic and international leisure and business travel. This is in turn increasing demand for hotel accommodation, especially for larger branded players who are expected to outstrip demand for non-branded hotels by a factor of three.

IHG has identified several key opportunities:

• Greater China: IHG believes the Chinese hotel room market will overtake the US, which is currently the world's largest, in 2025 and become twice the current US size by 2039. The next twenty years will see almost an eightfold increase in IHG's rooms in Greater China. This means the company will offer 360,000 rooms and its hotel owners will employ 325,000 people (currently the worldwide IHG number) in China alone.
• The Middle East: the region's GDP is outpacing the rest of the world
  and offers superb RevPAR opportunities. IHG already enjoys a market leader position and aims to open 38 new hotels across the region in the next 4-5 years.
• India: IHG has been in India for 48 years and now aims to treble its size in next three years, opening 150 new hotels by 2020.

Speaking to financial investors and analysts in the City of London today, Andrew Cosslett, IHG's CEO said: "Hotel companies need to anticipate trends at least 10-20 years ahead and we know the world is going to be on the move like never before. The economic empowerment of developing countries and massive growth in business and leisure travel mean we will aim for sustained growth in what could be an era of unprecedented opportunity and sustained growth for the hotel industry"

"Our leading positions in key growth markets, the strength of our brands and our long-term relationships with local partners give IHG a terrific advantage over the competition. We are wonderfully placed to more than double our presence over the next few years in markets such as China, India and the Middle East and our hotels aim to employ half a million people in developing markets by 2025".

"The other great news is that the more established markets such as Europe and the Americas continue to show good growth. This is giving us the firepower to invest, attract owners and make the most of our dfdfopportunities around the world."

For more information on IHG's plans in China, Middle East, India and Russia, today's presentation to analysts will be available from 18:00 (GMT) at www.ihgplc.com. Factsheets on our regional presences are available in the About us section.