NEWS

THE CEO OF IHG HOTELS & RESORTS POSITIONS HIS COMPANY FOR GROWTH THIS WAY.

By DAVID EISEN

Speaking at the Skift Global Forum, the chief of such brands as Holiday Inn, Candlewood Suites, Crowne Plaza and InterContinental, underscored the importance and vitality of markets in the U. S. and Europe, but most of the growth, he said, is moving East, into the Middle East, Southeast Asia, China—“ a basin of 3 billion people that is growing fast, has a younger population, higher middle-class growth, more infrastructure development... it all conspires in a good way to turbocharge

travel growth,” Maalouf said. He drilled down deeper on Japan, a country, he said, whose hotels remain vastly underbranded from the perspective of international brands, with independent hotels and inns still dominating. That, he said, is changing.“ Japan is incredibly developed, has an evolved economy and society, but the hotel industry has been very internal. It’ s a huge opportunity.”

Japan recorded a recordbreaking 36.9 million international visitors in 2024, surpassing the prepandemic peak of 2019 and representing a 47 % increase from 2023. Maalouf said it’ s on its way to 60 million and with that growth, he said, there needs to be changes to

its hotel industry.“ They’ ve got great infrastructure, great culture, great heritage and an incredible transportation network, but the hotel sector needs transformation,” he said, adding that only 5 % of the country’ s hotel stock is branded by international brands. However, he stressed, it has nothing to do with the quality of hotels that are there; rather, it’ s about international tourist expectations.“ The [ hotels ] are either independent or domestic brands, which are fine, but they’ re not fine enough for all these international travelers coming,” he said.

LEARNING LESSONS One advantage IHG has is its heritage, especially in China, where IHG has some 800

68 hotelsmag. com November 2025