Dubai: InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) expects sustainable performance across its properties in the UAE during the low summer season, Pascal Gauvin, COO of IHG in India, the Middle East and Africa, told Gulf News in an interview.

“The UAE has been able to build a reputation for the leisure market during the summer time, which year after year is continuous,” Gauvin said. He declined to provide a forecast for occupancy and revenue for this quarter.

The UK-based company’s first-quarter revenue per available room (RevPAR- a benchmark for performance) for its properties in Asia, the Middle East and Africa (AMEA) grew by 3.8 per cent over the first quarter in 2013.

This was driven by a combination of leisure demand and MICE [meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions], Gauvin said.

The company’s revenue in the AMEA touched $230 million (Dh844 million) last year. Gauvin declined to provide a forecast for revenue this year. Globally, meanwhile, IHG’s revenue stood at $1.9 billion last year.

The Middle East is IHG’s top source market for its UAE hotels (45 per cent), followed by Europe, Asia and the Americas.

The company franchises, leases, manages or owns more than 4,700 hotels in 100 countries and territories.

With 81 hotels operational in the Middle East, the company has 25 in the pipeline, which are expected to open within the next three to five years, and will add 7,500 rooms.

Seven of the hotels in the pipeline are likely to open in the UAE, which will add 1,800 rooms. These include an InterContinental hotel in Dubai Marina, which is expected to open in November this year, and a Crowne Plaza just opposite of the Dubai Marina property, which is set to open in 2016.

Brand debut

Saudi Arabia, one of IHG’s main markets, is likely to see the opening of a Hotel Indigo next year, which will be the brand’s debut property in the region, as well as three properties under the long-stay brand Staybridge Suites, which are set to open in the next two to three years.

“The UAE and Saudi Arabia are two of our most important growth markets: we had strong results across these countries in 2013 and see good headspace for further growth in the future, driven by the MICE market and a very strong intra-regional travel,” Gauvin said.

The company has nine brands, of which six are in the Middle East, including InterContinental Hotels and Resorts, Crowne Plaza Hotels and Resorts, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites and Hotel Indigo, which is expected to enter the region in 2015.

Asked when IHG will take its other three brands — Candlewood Suites, Even Hotels and Hualuxe Hotels and Resorts — to the Middle East, Gauvin said that there are no plans to do that.

On whether IHG plans to have a hotel at Al Maktoum International Airport, Dubai’s second airport which opened its passenger terminal last year, he said: “If it makes sense for one of our brands to be there and if investors think this is the right brand for the market and we agree on it, we would definitely love to be there.”

The company has no plans to boost capacity of its existing hotels in the UAE.