Hotels owner InterContinental Hotels Group PLC (LON:IHG, NYSE:IHG) saw a better-than-expected year-on-year increase in its key metric, revenue per available room (RevPAR) in the first quarter.
Despite the turmoil in the oil market, which had an impact on activity in some of its most lucrative regions, and the earlier timing of Easter, RevPAR was up 1.5% from a year earlier.
That topped the 1.4% increase expected by Vicki Stern, an analyst at Barclays, and the 1% increase from the pessimistic souls at UBS.
Across the group globally, room rates were up by an average of 1.0% while the occupancy rate rose 0.3 percentage points.
The group said the adverse impact across the industry of the earlier Easter, which hit the Americas and Europe especially hard, should unwind in the second quarter of this year.
Chief executive Richard Solomons said it was “a good start” to the year, though the market begged to differ, with the shares of 0.5% in a market down 0.2% in the first half hour of trading.
The Holiday Inn owner's chief executive acknowledged economic and political uncertainty in some markets, but said “current trading trends and the momentum behind our brands give us confidence for the rest of the year."