(Reuters) – InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), owner of Holiday Inn, said on Friday that its chief executive Keith Barr would step down on June 30 and that the company’s chief executive for the Americas region, Elie Maalouf, would succeed him.
Keith Barr, who has worked at IHG for more than 30 years, took over the leadership of the group in July 2017.
“He rallied a company around a clear strategy with hotel owners and guests at the heart, strengthened IHG’s business platform, and set the company on a path to long-term sustainable growth and continued strong track record of creating shareholder value,” Chairman Deanna Oppenheimer said in a statement.
Hotel operators, which faced an uneven recovery in Chinese demand last year, are now benefiting from pent-up demand in the Greater China region.
The group, which also operates the Crowne Plaza and Regent hotel chains, also reported in the first quarter a 33% jump in revenue per available room (RevPAR), a key indicator of the performance of the hotel industry.
(Report Radhika Anilkumar in Bangalore, French version Augustin Turpin, edited by Kate Entringer)
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