Earnings Call Transcript
Intercontinental Hotels Group PLC /New/ (IHG)
Earnings Call Transcript - IHG Q2 2023
Stuart Ford, Head of Investor Relations
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to IHG's Conference Call for the 2023 Half Year Results. So I'm Stuart Ford, Head of Investor Relations at IHG, and I'm joined this morning by Elie Maalouf, our Group Chief Executive, and Michael Glover, our Chief Financial Officer. Just to remind listeners on the call that in discussions today, the company may make certain forward-looking statements as defined under US law. Do please refer to this morning's announcement and the company's SEC filings for factors that could lead actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by any such forward-looking statements. For those analysts or institutional investors who are listening via our website, can I remind you that in order to ask questions, you will need to dial in using the details on page two of this morning's RNS release. The release together with the accompanying presentation and the usual supplementary data pack can be downloaded from the Results and Presentations section under the Investors tab on ihgplc.com.
Elie Maalouf, Group Chief Executive
I'm honored to take over as Group CEO and excited to look ahead with our talented teams and owners to an important next chapter of growth for IHG. In a moment, Michael will talk you through our financials for the half. But first, let me share some key highlights. We had a strong first half across our financial results, hotel openings, and signings, which were all significantly above last year. Trading continues to be very healthy. RevPAR improved year-on-year across all our markets and has now exceeded 2019 pre-pandemic peaks for four consecutive quarters. H1 global RevPAR was up 24% year-on-year and up 8.7% versus 2019. Q2 RevPAR was up 17% year-on-year and up 9.9% versus 2019. Looking at system size, our gross growth was 6.3% and net growth was 4.8%. We opened 108 hotels, 40% more rooms than H1 last year, and we signed 239 hotels, which is 11% more rooms than last year. We continued to successfully capture conversion opportunities, which represented around 40% of signings and openings. Our pipeline increased 3% year-on-year to more than 286,000 rooms, representing 31% of today's system size. With our fee margin expanding by 3.3 percentage points, this led to an operating profit of $479 million, up 27% year-on-year. We are confident in the strength and continued growth of our highly cash-generative business. Our current $750 million share buyback program announced in February was 47% complete, and we are pleased to declare an interim dividend 10% higher than 2022. In recent years, we have strengthened our enterprise platform through significant investments in our master brand loyalty program, technology and distribution channels. Our brand portfolio has expanded and diversified through organic launches and acquisitions of seven brands since 2017. We continue to invest in all our brands by optimizing and elevating their format, design, service, and quality, and by increasing their scale. We continually assess our brand portfolio for further growth opportunities that address clear long-term trends and sizable market demand from guests, loyalty members, and our owners. In line with that approach, we are very excited to announce today that we will be launching a new best-in-class mid-scale conversion brand with the opportunity for considerable scale. I'll talk more about this later in the presentation. But first, let me hand over to Michael, who will take you through the details of our financial results for the half.
Michael Glover, Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Elie, and good morning everyone. I'll start with our headline report results from reportable segments. Revenue of $1 billion and operating profit of $479 million represented growth of 23% and 27% against 2022, respectively. Revenue from the fee business increased by 21% to $799 million, or by 24% on an underlying basis, which is at constant currency and excludes the small amount of liquidated damages received in the prior year. Operating profit from the fee business increased by 27% to $470 million, or by 30% on an underlying basis. Fee margin once again made considerable progress, improving by 330 basis points to 58.8%, and I'll touch on this more during the presentation. Adjusted interest decreased to $58 million. However, for the full year, we would still expect this increase to be between $130 million and $140 million, which is the same as our previous indications. Our effective tax rate was 25%, down three percentage points from half year 2022. We received around a two percentage point benefit from the one-off impact of legislation change in the Middle East during the half, which will subsequently blend out to a one percentage point benefit for the year as a whole. We therefore anticipate a full-year effective tax rate of around 26% rather than the 27% as previously indicated. Taken all together, along with the 6% reduction in our share count as a result of the share buybacks, earnings per share increased by 50% to $1.827. Overall, these results demonstrate strong financial performance in the first half of the year, with it being particularly pleasing to see progress ahead of 2019 levels across all of our headline metrics. Moving on to our RevPAR performance by region, in the Americas there was no let-up in demand with RevPAR maintaining strong levels of outperformance versus 2019. Q2 RevPAR was up 12% on 2019, following Q1 which was up 11%. In EMEAA, strong performances in the UK and Continental Europe and the continued recovery of markets such as Japan, Korea, and Vietnam meant that the exit rate of index RevPAR hit a new high with June showing growth of 17% on 2019. Greater China continued its rapid recovery since COVID restrictions were relaxed at the end of 2022. Q2 RevPAR was down only 0.5% versus 2019, marking clear progress from Q1 when RevPAR was down 9.1% and even further improvement from Q4 2022 when RevPAR was down 42%. It's worth noting, however, that we would still expect Greater China to experience RevPAR down in the middle-single digits versus 2019 in the second half of the year, given the lag of International Inbound Travel. On a year-on-year basis, Greater China RevPAR will be up very slowly. Looking at the composition of US revenue in more detail, it's clear there are positive readings across all demand drivers. Leisure remained buoyant with elevated rates showing no sign of weakening. As you can see on the chart on the right-hand side, despite the exceptional performance seen in the first half of 2022, both Room Nights and ADR have improved further in 2023. Business demand has continued to strengthen both in terms of occupancy and pricing. We mentioned at the start of the year that corporate rates had recently been renegotiated for the first time since the onset of the pandemic. And this was demonstrated in the half with ADR up 6% versus 2019, compared to tracking slightly down on pre-COVID levels a year ago. Groups, which has been the slowest demand driver to recover, continues to advance, and forward booking data suggest that there will be further progressive improvement to come. As we noted in today's statement, meetings and events bookings have been ahead of 2019 levels for six months now, and what's on the books is 36% ahead of 2019 levels for meetings and events globally. As I previously mentioned, we've seen further expansion of our fee margin, which at 58.8% increased 330 basis points ahead of last year in 2022. This improvement was led by our EMEAA and Greater China regions, which saw margins increase significantly versus the first half of last year, as trading performance continued to accelerate. The Americas region saw margins slightly dip down 90 basis points to 81.9%. As you will remember we had previously signaled, costs would be added back to this part of the business to ensure full investment in order to achieve our future growth targets. Margins are still sustainably ahead of 2019 levels and sustainably so. To further detail the components of our revenue, our overheads, and our operating profit. In terms of fee business overheads, we expect around a 10% increase for the year as a whole. The underlying inflation rate on our overhead is around 5%. On top of that, we have the integration cost for Iberostar and we have some further areas to spend as we develop our systems and invest in opportunities like the launch of our new mid-scale conversion brand. Our efficient cost base and operating model enables investment for growth as well as expecting a continuation of operating leverage that should drive the same 100 to 150 basis points a year margin expansion that IHG has delivered on prior decades. Turning to system size, in the first six months of 2023, we opened 21,000 rooms representing active in the system in the half equivalent to a 1.5% removal rate year-on-year or at 0.8% year-to-date. Taken together, net system size growth over the last 12 months is 4.8%, while year-to-date growth is at 1.5% at the half. Year-on-year net system size growth demonstrates that we still remain confident of achieving consensus expectations of around 4% growth for the year. Quickly touching on development, over 34,000 rooms were signed in the half, an increase of 11% over the same period last year. In the Americas regions, signings were up almost 16% compared to the first half of 2022, with a particularly strong second quarter. The strength of IHG’s brands and enterprise system has meant that we have continued to develop the pipeline in spite of current challenges to commercial real estate financing. And as Elie will talk about, we've had strong signings across our brands. And it was very pleasing to see our six luxury and lifestyle brands account for 26% of the signings as part of our brand portfolio as part of this brand portfolio increases in the mix. Turning now to capital expenditure. We spent gross CapEx of $113 million, and net CapEx was an outflow of $65 million after proceeds from disposal and system fund. Key money of $64 million was up from $35 million in 2022 and is indicative of our increased development activity back to pre-COVID levels and also a mark of our growth in the luxury and lifestyle segment. Importantly, it's also a reflection of our discipline in only deploying funds where the returns justify the investment. Maintenance CapEx was $16 million, given our emphasis on investing in the long-term health and sustainability of our core brand business infrastructure and systems to ensure they support our growth. Turning to the system fund. We continue to benefit from depreciation levels exceeding CapEx, which follows the completion of our major investment in the global reservation system. Our medium-term capital expenditure guidance remains unchanged at up to $350 million gross per annum. We expect our recyclable investments and system fund capital investments to net to zero over the medium term, resulting in net CapEx of around $150 million per annum. Moving now to cash flow. During the half, adjusted free cash flow saw an inflow of $277 million, nearly double the $142 million this time last year, demonstrating once again the highly cash-generative nature of our business model. Within free cash flow was the usual seasonal working capital outflow, the $158 million outflow that you see here in the first half of 2023 compared to the $103 million this time last year, and for the 2022 year as a whole this turned to become an inflow. Net cash outflow after the payment of dividends and our share buyback program was just under $300 million. Together with adverse foreign exchange movements, this meant that our closing net debt position increased by just over $400 million. Strategy for the uses of cash remains unchanged. After investing behind long-term growth, which remains our foremost priority, we look to sustainably grow the ordinary dividend. In this regard, we are pleased to announce the interim dividend will be $0.483 representing 10% growth on last year's. In February, we announced a $750 million buyback program with the aim of resetting our leverage ratio to within the targeted two and a half to three times. Having repurchased shares to the value of approximately $350 million during the half, leverage increased to 2.3 times, which also reflects our strong growth in profitability and continued highly efficient cash generation. As we look at the calendar 2023, the combination of ordinary dividends of around $250 million and the buyback program of $750 million were equivalent to over 8% of IHG's current market capitalization. We will continue to closely monitor and assess the quantum of capital firms. With that, let me now hand back to Elie.
Elie Maalouf, Group Chief Executive
Well, thank you, Michael. We operate in a very attractive industry benefiting from long-term structural growth drivers of expanding GDP, growing populations, rising middle class and wealth, and people's fundamental desire to travel and physically interact for both business and leisure. These structural drivers have led the industry's global revenue CAGR to outpace global economic growth. This attractive demand also supports hotel supply growth and healthy asset returns for hotel investors. Leading global hotel brand businesses like IHG continue their long-term trend of taking market share of both demand and supply, and this trend has accelerated in recent years. IHG has 4% of the global industry's open rooms, but we have over 10% of the pipeline. This puts us in a strong position to continue increasing our scale and capturing market share. Our well-invested portfolio of 18 brands forms a powerful network of 925,000 rooms across more than 6,200 hotels. We have geographic reach across more than 100 countries and a full range of product segment diversification from mid-scale to upper luxury. Our pipeline of 286,000 rooms represents secured multiyear growth of over 30% of today's system size. We have a well-proven ability to successfully drive long-term growth in both demand and supply, with RevPAR and net system size CAGRs over the prior decade growing around 6%; an overall outstanding performance demonstrating that our strategy has returned $15 billion to shareholders since 2003. Most recently, with our shift to rolling share buybacks. Critically, we have built a high barrier-to-entry global business through the investments we have made over many decades to grow our scale, strengthen our enterprise platform, and deliver a high-margin, high-earnings growth business. And all of this didn't change with the pandemic. IHG is a stronger and more resilient company today. There are short-term macro pressures, but you've seen and heard about the strength of demand. And while the current financing environment for commercial property puts some temporary constraint on new build hotel development, strong demand is increasing room rates and RevPAR, also because new supply is lower. We are confident that the underlying strong demand fundamentals will once again stimulate increased new development as they have in prior cycles. So accordingly, we still expect progress in growing our net system size given the strength of IHG's enterprise platform and portfolio brands, particularly our geographic reach and increasing ability to capture conversion. Now let's turn to look at the progress we're making on our four strategic priorities. First, how are we developing our portfolio of loved and trusted brands? Our Essentials and Suites collection consists of mid-scale, upper mid-scale, and extended-stay brands. These represent around two-thirds of our system size and evolving and remain a core growth engine, representing close to 60% of our pipeline. In recent years, you've seen how IHG has evolved our brands in both these segments, and that continues today.
Michael Glover, Chief Financial Officer
Both our Essentials and Suites collections have significant runway for growth. Despite our scale in both segments, encompassing over 625,000 rooms across more than 4,000 hotels, we are close to plateauing or reaching a point of saturation. In fact, our Essentials portfolio has a further 25% growth already secured in the pipeline. And our Suites collection is a further 45%. Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express delivered over a third of our signings and a quarter of our openings in the first half. Holiday Inn Express extended its market-leading scale with 38 openings and 77 signings. Express has now reached over 3,100 open hotels in 50 countries, and a pipeline for further 640 representing future system growth of 24%. And Holiday Inn opened seven hotels in the past quarter. The brand now is close to 1,200 open hotels in 80 countries with its pipeline equivalent to 20% of its current system size. Avid now has over 200 open and pipeline properties across the US, Mexico, and Canada. The brand is delivering great guest satisfaction, strong revenue share, and a growing amount of asset transaction data is showing how hotel developers can capitalize on the strong return on investment of a new build Avid hotel. We've seen even more opportunity in this segment, so we will soon be launching a new best-in-class mid-scale conversion brand. This brand has considerable opportunity to build substantial scale. In the US alone, existing supply in the mid-scale space is over 700,000 rooms across 9,500 hotels, representing $14 billion in annual hotel revenue, which is projected to grow by about 30% by 2030. Conversions continue to rise in importance globally and present an increasing share of system growth. In this last latest half-year, conversions grew to represent around 40% of our signings and openings, reflecting the desire for more hotel owners to join IHG's enterprise platform. The mid-scale segment is currently characterized by unrenovated lower brand strength product, but with customers eager to travel and experience consistent quality stays. So, it is a space ripe for share gains through the conversion to the brand we will be introducing. Our brand will target both existing branded and independent supply, which today is split roughly 70-30 in the US. We expect conversions to the new brand to cost around 25% less than the cost of a Holiday Inn Express conversion. The brand will attract a new segment of guests to IHG and to our One Rewards loyalty program, and will provide them with a high-quality product and experience, with clear design intent and standards that consistently deliver on guest expectations. This compelling proposition will also attract new hotel owner groups to IHG who can then further grow with us. Owners will leverage the scale and skills of IHG's enterprise platform, including our distribution channels and the loyalty program to drive performance, increase efficiency, and earn superior returns at a lower capital cost to convert. More than 100 hotels have already expressed definitive interest in our new brand, with this representing over 80 different owners. We project the brand to reach an estate of over 500 hotels over the next 10 years and more than 1,000 hotels over the next 20 years, and that's just in the United States.
Elie Maalouf, Group Chief Executive
I'd like to now touch on a few recent highlights of the Suites collections. The strength and attractiveness of Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites continues. We opened 12 properties in the half and signed 34 more. With nearly 700 hotels open and another 300 in their pipelines, their growth outlook remains very strong. Positioned between these two brands is our newest Atwell Suites brand, which has grown its pipeline to 35 properties and has a great runway for future growth. The Holiday Inn Club Vacations timeshare company signed a portfolio conversion of four prominent beachfront resorts in Cancun, Mexico to expand on its current 28 resorts. This marks the brand's first properties outside of the US, further broadening IHG's resort footprint and providing guests with increased choice in leisure destinations. Now moving from our brands driving volume growth to our collection of luxury and lifestyle brands, which are driving high-value growth. These brands accounted for 26% of our signings in the half. Luxury and Lifestyle today represents 13% of our system but is now 21% of our pipeline, around twice the size from five years earlier, demonstrating a clear expansion of our state mix to higher chain scales with higher fees per key. Our Luxury and Lifestyle pipeline represents around 60% growth of the current system size of EMEAA and Greater China. And for the Americas, it represents growth of nearly 30%. This means that at a group level, our Luxury and Lifestyle collection has almost 50% growth secured in the pipeline today, taking the total number of open and pipeline rooms to over 180,000 across more than 800 hotels. We are still in the early stages of reaching the full growth potential of this exceptional brand collection. Now briefly sharing some further highlights by brand. Six Senses and Regent are examples of IHG's success in accelerating the growth and internationalization of acquired brands. Six Senses has grown to 23 open properties and its pipeline of 39 has more than doubled in size since acquisition. InterContinental has grown to 215 properties across more than 60 countries with a pipeline of 93 more, representing growth of 33% of its current system size. This brand with 75-plus years of heritage still has very impressive growth ahead. The Vignette Collection, our luxury and lifestyle conversion brand, signed and opened its first hotel in the US and has now secured 25 properties globally. This means it is well on track to deliver its ambition of securing more than 100 properties in 10 years. Kimpton signed a further nine properties including its first in Saudi Arabia, a market with tremendous growth opportunity that is aspiring to welcome 100 million visitors annually. Kimpton's global pipeline is now approaching 50 properties on top of the 75 currently open, representing future system growth of over 70%. Moving on to our next two strategic priorities; being customer-centric and digital advantage. It is now one year since our biggest transformation and investment in our loyalty program. IHG One Rewards is a critical part of why our guests choose to stay with us and it's absolutely key to driving performance and future growth. The transformation in 2022 gave members more tailored experiences and more options to earn and redeem points across our brands. For our owners, the program means higher volumes of more engaged and profitable guests to their hotels, with over half of room nights coming from over 115 million loyalty members who are nine times more likely to book direct and spend 20% more than non-members. Enrollments in the first half were up by a remarkable 60% on last year and reward nights were also up by more than 40% compared to 2019 levels. With more than 1.7 million milestone rewards have been chosen since launch. There is also a strategic synergy between IHG One Rewards and our credit card offers. The investments we have made in both have strengthened these important revenue-generating engines at these strengths. The relaunched US co-brand credit cards are proving highly attractive to customers, driving increased usage, loyalty, and net promoter scores. New accounts have increased more than 80% year-on-year and are more than double 2019 levels. US cardholders represent an increasing proportion of reward night stays, and there is strong double-digit growth in overall co-brand credit card spend both year-on-year and versus 2019. We have made significant investments over recent years to innovate our technology and distribution channels. Our cloud-based industry-leading global reservation system now allows us to feature attribute upsell in over 5,000 hotels. This offers guests more options such as bigger rooms and better views. Therefore, it increases guest choice while generating maximum value for owners from selling the unique attributes of their room inventory. Our digital direct booking channels are seeing around a 1% revenue uplift from the upsell opportunities, and the value for upsell booking is averaging an additional $23 across the estate. We are continuing to beta test and roll out further attributes and opportunities to capture upsell. This same GRS platform and the changes we've implemented to booking floor are also generating cross-sell opportunities for non-room extras at a 2% conversion rate, leading to further incremental revenue per booking for add-ons such as F&B credits, lounge access, and other stay enhancements. Our new mobile app launched just over a year ago has seen the number of downloads, users, bookings, and revenue all increase by 40% to 50% on 2022 levels. IHG's direct digital channels have grown to contribute around one-fourth of hotel revenue globally. Our mobile channels now account for more than half of all digital bookings. 80% of our most valuable guests are Diamond status IHG One Reward members have the app and engage with it multiple times a week. Concluding with our fourth strategic priority, care. Our journey to tomorrow 2030 responsible business plan is focused on five critical areas: our people, communities, carbon and energy, waste, and water. We are sustaining positive progress across all five pillars. Today, I would like to highlight an investment that is supporting our growth to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We are pleased to be the first hotel company to provide owners with a community solar offering in the US currently across the states of Illinois, Maine, and Maryland with plans to expand to more states soon. This offering advances the development of clean energy, supports our owners to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, lowers owner cost through the credits on their electricity bills, and promotes the guests that their stay is powered by clean energy. The program also helps IHG make progress towards our 2030 Journey to Tomorrow targets. In summary, we had a strong first half. We delivered a robust trading performance with healthy demand across leisure, business, and groups. H1 global RevPAR was up 24% on last year and up 8.7% versus pre-pandemic levels. Our net system size grew 4.8% with the opening of 21,000 rooms, 40% more than the first half last year. Our operating profit grew 27% year-on-year with our fee margin continuing to expand. Our model has once again shown its highly cash-generative nature supporting our capital allocation strategy. Our priorities remain to fund growth, investments, sustainable dividend, and return additional surplus capital to shareholders to rolling share buybacks. We are pleased to declare a 10% increase in the interim dividend and our current $750 million share buyback program together with the ordinary dividend means that in total, $1 billion of capital is being returned to shareholders in calendar 2023, equivalent to over 8% of our current market cap. Finally, we're very excited to soon launch the new mid-scale conversion brand with great growth potential. As I step back and reflect on these strong results, the strength of our business and our incredibly talented teams, I'm excited for what lies ahead. We will be further articulating our strategic priorities at the full year results stage as we build upon the next chapter of this great journey, and I'm confident in the strength of our enterprise platform and our attractive long-term growth outlook. With that, Michael and I are happy to take your questions.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. Our first question today comes from Jamie Rollo with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.
Jamie Rollo, Analyst
Thanks. Good morning. Hope you could hear me okay. Three questions please. First, just in terms of just the first one you both sort of presented a set of results since the senior changes. Any sort of changes to strategy or anything you might be doing differently going forward? It doesn't sound like it, but just wondering what your sort of thoughts are there. Secondly, no signs of a slowdown but on the Americas the charts are showing you can see the RevPAR sort of flatlined for sort of six months now versus 2019. And on your US charts sort of room nights it looks like leisure business and groups are all sequentially weaker in Q2. I'm just wondering, I mean are you concerned about that? Do you think that's all displacement to international markets? And also I don't think the company has given your actual US performance in Q2 to help us track it versus the market. So if you could touch on that as well. And then finally your sort of views on net unit growth. It sounds like from the statement you're sort of happy with that sort of 4% soft guidance number but some of your US peers walked down their underlying numbers a little bit and you're seeing a sort of higher conversion mix. Any thoughts on the 4% for this year and what that might mean for next year as well? Thank you.
Elie Maalouf, Group Chief Executive
Thank you, Jamie. I look forward to seeing you in person later in the week. Since joining IHG in 2015 on the Executive Committee and then a few years later on the Board, I've been integral to the development of our strategy, integral to its execution not just in our largest market but also on an enterprise level. We built a very strong foundation, an expanded powerful brand portfolio, stronger enterprise systems through loyalty technology, commercial systems, and a global distribution really in the best strongest fastest-growing markets that have great domestic potential but also great outbound and inbound. So we're building on a very strong foundation. I did start July 1. We'll be very focused on sharpening execution, accelerating our growth, but also evolving because this is a dynamic industry. It's a great, wonderful dynamic industry with strong secular tailwind, structural benefits but you have to evolve over time. When I joined the company in 2015, I think we had 10 brands; today, we have 18. We're announcing a 19th coming along. So part of our strategy is to evolve our strategies, say, relevant to our guests, relevant to our owners, relevant in our local markets. So as we go forward, things will evolve just like we announced today with our new mid-scale conversion brand and we'll keep everybody updated on that.
Michael Glover, Chief Financial Officer
Let me address the performance in the US. Looking at the financial results, RevPAR for the US in Q2 2023 was 4.4%, following a Q1 increase of 14.8%. As noted in the Q1 announcement, we were comparing against some COVID-affected periods, which we anticipated would catch up. Compared to Q1 2019, the figures for Q1 2023 showed a 10 percentage point improvement, while Q2 was at 10.6 points versus 2019. Overall, the US industry remains strong, and we are optimistic about future progress given solid unemployment numbers and improving consumer sentiment. This should provide a favorable environment as we proceed into the third and fourth quarters. Regarding system growth, we are on track with our target of around 4%. We achieved 4.8% year-on-year, with a first quarter figure of 0.4% and 1.5% year-to-date. We are confident in the projections and guidance we provided of approximately 4%.
Jamie Rollo, Analyst
And any early thoughts on next year that 4% accelerate or decelerate you think?
Elie Maalouf, Group Chief Executive
Look, I think we're pleased with the progress we're making across the full enterprise. I think we had strong signings in the first half of the year. That builds good momentum. Our new brand launch will be also accretive to our growth. Our markets are still recovering very well. So we're confident in our ability to continue to grow our system at competitive rates.
Jamie Rollo, Analyst
Thank you very much.
Elie Maalouf, Group Chief Executive
Hey thanks Jamie.
Vicki Stern, Analyst
Yes. Good morning. Just firstly, I want to turn to China. So you mentioned that you're expecting a slightly softer back half trend with that lack of international travel. Question just sort of firstly on the near-term outlook for demand generally what you're seeing on the ground from a domestic standpoint and also the sort of unit growth pace of recovery that you're seeing.
Elie Maalouf, Group Chief Executive
Thank you, Vicki. So look in China have been there for over 40 years, we have over 550 hotels opened, another nearly 600 in the pipeline. If you just look at the long-term, the penetration of hotel rooms per capita of the penetration of travel in China is just a fraction of what it is in more developed markets like Europe and the US. So there is really multiples of business potential opportunity. We've been there over 40 years. We take a long-term view. We think it's going to be a great long-term potential for us. Our outlook is unchanged and very positive. I mean in the short term, domestic travel has actually recovered very well. If you look at our business in China, it had slightly exceeded 2019 in domestic business. Clearly, the air capacity constraints, inbound and outbound, are out of our control. They are recovering. It's a matter for airlines and aircraft manufacturers to resolve. But there's actually a lot of optimism on that. You might have noted at the Paris Air Show, there were just record orders for aircraft. So, you have airlines and aircraft manufacturers very positive about the global outlook for international travel. That's why they're ordering billions of dollars of aircraft. And so, we think that as a long-term outlook, we still have to recover to that international in that capacity, but that's going to develop over time, and we're optimistic about that.
Vicki Stern, Analyst
Second one just I think you talked when you were doing Iberostar deal about looking at other similar sorts of deals like that just sort of wondering on progress there. Is that something you're still expecting? And then finally on the US development backdrop just sort of what you're seeing on the ground now? Obviously, there's been a lot of chat going around sort of slower development on openings and issues within higher interest rates and so on. Just it doesn't sound as if that's sort of materializing in terms of any incremental weakness in your signings pace and your openings but a bit of color as to what you're really seeing and expecting. And with that, if you can give any sense on the under construction percentage of your pipeline please?
Elie Maalouf, Group Chief Executive
US development was your third question. So look, it's acknowledged that the pipeline of construction, the industry's pipeline of what was under construction in the United States coming out of the pandemic slowed down. Those are public statistics. Then we had interest rates increase and inflation and supply chain issues. We see a lot of that starting to resolve. Supply chain issues are mostly in the rearview mirror; more expert people would comment on interest rates, but it seems that general consensus is we’re closer to the end of interest rate increases, not sure exactly when, but we're closer to the end than the middle or the beginning. And inflation statistics continue up until now to moderate. So that seems to be a little more of a constructive environment. And I think that is sensed by our owners, who are increasing signing and showing confidence in building and opening IHG Hotel. So we think the trajectory is going in the right direction.
Michael Glover, Chief Financial Officer
What I would add there, Elie, as well, is that conversions have picked up and that's really supporting our development activity in the system growth. We mentioned in the scripts that 40% of our openings and signings were conversion brands, and we're launching a new brand to further support that with our new mid-scale conversion brand. We're really excited about what that brings. It creates a great opportunity for owners at a lower price point to get into and take advantage of our leading systems and technology and tools and enterprise delivery. So we're really excited about what that can bring and help support that as the construction environment continues and lending environment continues to get better over time.
Elie Maalouf, Group Chief Executive
I mean keep in mind that as the industry in the US is projected to have low supply growth. I think SDR last said 0.5%, which frankly when you include sort of exits from obsolescence is basically not much. On the other hand, that is very supportive of continued RevPAR growth through rate growth, which we've experienced, and we think that there's more there because really in real terms, rate has only kept up by good inflation impact only this year cutoff with inflation. That rate growth and RevPAR growth fuels a solid hotel cash flow performance which then encourages owners to finance the hotels, which encourages lenders as they recover from the turbulence this year and the higher interest rates to then finance hotel growth. So that cycle we're confident will restart because hotels are performing well. And actually, the lower supply today will encourage future supply growth.
Michael Glover, Chief Financial Officer
Just to finalize that question, we have about 40% of our pipeline under construction.
Vicki Stern, Analyst
Thanks very much.
Jaina Mistry, Analyst
Hi. Thanks very much for taking my questions. If we could go back to net unit growth again for 2024, it looks like consensus is on 4% growth. Now, I appreciate you don't want to give guidance for next year, but how has your confidence changed in hitting consensus to 4% growth next year? How has it changed over the last three months? And then secondly around share buybacks. I see that your net debt-to-EBITDA is at the midpoint of the 2.5 times to three times leverage range. Do you see any scope for upside there, given that it appears trading is still strong and there's still scope for you to move to the upper end of your net debt-to-EBITDA range. And then lastly, I just wondered about your outlook on the US business. Thank you very much for putting in commentary around STR recoveries over the next two years. But it feels like next year, we should see the first year of normalized growth for the US. And how do you expect the market to grow next year? Is it a low single-digit type of growth in terms of first half next year? Anything you can give there would be very helpful.
Elie Maalouf, Group Chief Executive
I’ll address your first and last questions, and Michael will discuss the balance sheet and capital returns. We have not provided guidance for next year, nor do we plan to. We are confident in our net unit growth as we continue to make progress this year. We are happy with the advancements in our pipeline, maintaining 40% under construction. Our progress in conversions is also encouraging, as these have greater visibility and quicker turnaround from pipeline to opening. Everything seems to be trending positively, and we remain optimistic about our robust portfolio and ongoing partnerships with owners, which we believe will enable us to sustain competitive growth rates. Regarding the US market, we are aware of the industry forecasts for next year; however, forecasts can be imprecise and rely on subjective factors. That said, we are not experiencing any downturn in demand across any of our segments. The leisure sector, in particular, remains strong, showing signs of a shift in consumer travel patterns. People are extending their stays by mixing leisure with work travel, thereby increasing our hotel occupancy even though air trips may be fewer. On the business side, we've returned to pre-pandemic business revenue levels globally, slightly exceeding rates but with occupancy just 4% below 2019 figures. This leaves room for further recovery in business travel. Consumer bookings still lag behind 2019 since there's a longer lead time for bookings, but as Michael noted, we're seeing bookings 36% ahead year-to-date compared to 2019, which is a positive sign. The entire industry is witnessing a resurgence in group and meeting events as organizations recognize the limitations of virtual formats. I recently attended a large conference in Las Vegas, and discussions with leaders from major hospitality firms indicated they are experiencing record-breaking years. The potential for group and meeting events remains significant. This does not yet account for the advantages we should see as international travel recovers, particularly with China reopening for outbound travel. Despite the increasing challenges in year-over-year comparisons, we anticipate steady, normal growth and feel confident in our ability to capture market share and enhance our business.
Michael Glover, Chief Financial Officer
Thank you. And on share buybacks, if we look at what we're doing this year, we're looking at returning greater than 8% of our share capital to shareholders. So we feel like we're in a great position right there. Obviously, we're very comfortable sitting in the 2.5x to 3x net debt to EBITDA. We are also being more direct about the fact that our model is highly cash generative and we will be looking at doing rolling share buybacks going forward. Obviously, it's a decision for the Board, and the Board will continue to evaluate that as we move forward.
Jaina Mistry, Analyst
If I could just follow-up on net unit growth. It sounds like sentiment might trust and things are moving in the right direction. Do you expect to gain share or in fact in the data that you're seeing are you gaining share of the pipeline at the pace that you expected?
Elie Maalouf, Group Chief Executive
We've been constantly gaining share globally from independents and other competitors. It's visible. 4% of open hotels, 10% of pipeline, so embedded already; we have a share gain before we even sign more hotels, and I think take share further in the market. So that's not just the United States, but that's really globally across all of our major markets.
Jaina Mistry, Analyst
Excellent. Thanks very much.
Operator, Operator
Our next question comes from Jarrod Castle with UBS. Your line is open.
Jarrod Castle, Analyst
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. I don't know how much you can say, but just your new conversion brand. Just interested in any thoughts in terms of how you think it's going to be better positioned or at least compete with other new conversion brands like Hilton Spark. Is it going to be on cost or kind of the type of product or distribution or everything? So any color you can give now. I know it's early stages, but that would be interesting? Secondly, just interested in any of your thoughts. The fee margin, I guess mathematically should keep going up. Is there any kind of I guess cap on where you think it could get to? I mean obviously, materially above 2019 levels, but just any thoughts as to whether you think there is like a roof to that? And then thirdly, I guess something you don't spend too much time on but just interested in any thoughts on IHG Residences how you see the development of those brands?
Elie Maalouf, Group Chief Executive
Let me take the first and third one, and then Michael will talk about the margin. Look, we're very excited about the soon-to-be-announced launch of our new mid-scale conversion brand. It's a very big market over 700,000 rooms over 9,500 hotels. And we've just heard from guests that they want a more trusted brand, an IHG brand in the space, and we've heard from owners that they would like to be part of the IHG system while maintaining a lot of the elements of their current product, which may be in very good condition, very new, but needs to have the trust and strength of an IHG system. That's why we're targeting the space. It's really different than what we already offer in our portfolio. New, doesn't really overlap much with what we have, which is kind of the philosophy we have in all our brand launches. We look for distinct spaces that are accretive, that have great growth potential that guests want to stay, and owners want to invest. We've heard loudly from our owners and our guests about it. We have 100 owners with definitive interest, and we think it's going to be an incremental growth driver for IHG. On Residences, yes, we absolutely feel like we have an opportunity in residences, especially now that we've really broadened our luxury and lifestyle portfolio with Six Senses, with Regent, with Vignette, and even Kimpton and Intercontinental are getting interest for residences. I think over half of our Six Senses deals in the pipeline have a residences aspect attached to them. Many of our region properties in the pipeline have residence projects attached to them, and that just shows you the strength of our portfolio and the additions we've made that take us into the new fields of profitable fee growth.
Michael Glover, Chief Financial Officer
Yes. And in terms of margin, I don't think we see a cap on that right now. We have a really strong model, in which we say we're going to grow 100 to 150 basis points of margin every year. We've got a lot of room in EMEA and Greater China, as they move to a more franchise model over time. So you can see kind of what that does for the Americas. Certainly in the short and mid-term, we feel very, and even longer-term, we feel great at delivering that 100 to 150 basis points of margin expansion while continuing to invest in the business as part of that.
Jarrod Castle, Analyst
All right. Thanks very much.
Operator, Operator
We now turn to Richard Clarke with Bernstein. Your line is open.
Richard Clarke, Analyst
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. A couple of questions on China, if I may. First of all, you said RevPAR is still a bit below 2019. I think we've had Marriott and Hyatt say their RevPARs were towered above 2019. I would have thought you have a higher domestic need, so just anything that's separating you from those is it more new builds in your chain scales. On the other side, your margin in China has recovered a lot drove probably the beat of the half year. Anything one-off in that or has that exit the pandemic as a 60% plus fee margin business? Is that just growing faster? And then maybe just one on Holiday Inn. It looks like Holiday Inn, it looks like RevPARs are back to decent growth now adding some hotels, but another 27 Holiday Inns have left the system quarter-on-quarter. Is that still you taking those out of the system or are these the owners exiting and is there any sign that Holiday Inn is beginning to bottom out in terms of its drag on unit growth?
Elie Maalouf, Group Chief Executive
Yes. So Richard let me first start with the question on China. I think as you think about China and how the recovery is happening certainly in the first half of 2023, you've seen really strong growth in your Tier 4 markets, particularly resort locations. As you know, we're highly distributed across Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3; certainly as we move into a more franchise model with Holiday Inn Express in some of those markets as you go into the Tier 3 and 4, having recovered certainly to the level that we saw in the Tier 4 and resort locations. Overall, we're very pleased with our performance, and we see very strong growth year-over-year and continued growth moving forward.
Michael Glover, Chief Financial Officer
Okay. You had a question about Holiday Inn. Before that, you had another question, Richard, right?
Richard Clarke, Analyst
Yes. So you've seen another 27 Holiday Inns, I think exit quarter-on-quarter.
Michael Glover, Chief Financial Officer
Yes. Look, we're very pleased with the progress we're making with both Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn. We're signing more hotels, opening up really great either fully renovated or new builds in both brands. Now, the exits from half-year to sometimes in the quarters can be lumpy across the year, but we're confident that we're on the right track to deliver a stronger slate, growing the slate, and a higher quality estate one that over the long term will have structurally lower exits.
Elie Maalouf, Group Chief Executive
And then just a question on the China fee margin has jumped up. Is there anything one-off in that or are we now a 60% margin business in China?
Michael Glover, Chief Financial Officer
There's nothing one-off in that, Richard. We would expect again as we move the franchise in China, and that's over time as RevPAR continues to grow in the middle cost growth as demand grows within the region, we would see that continue to grow.
Richard Clarke, Analyst
Thank you.
Operator, Operator
We now turn to Leo Carrington with Citi. Your line is open.
Leo Carrington, Analyst
Good morning. Can you hear me?
Elie Maalouf, Group Chief Executive
Yes, we can Leo.
Leo Carrington, Analyst
Thank you, Elie. Thanks, Michael. Three questions, please. In terms of the new mid-scale brand and how this fits into your existing conversion activity, you referenced the conversion costs versus Holiday Inn Express. Does that imply you're targeting owners who might be currently considering Holiday Inn Express conversion or was that just to give us an indication of the costs? And on this brand maybe you will, but why didn't it make sense to just launch it now as an Avid derivative? What steps up apart from Avid aside from the conversion piece? And then secondly, just briefly on Iberostar openings, are the Q2 openings in line with what your expectations were for the start of the year? Ad in terms of the run rate and the openings for the rest of the year, of Q2 quarter openings a sort of sensible assumption for the rest of the year? And then lastly just to follow-up on margins. In terms of thinking about the progression is there an argument that the lower development activity might be flattering margins? Is there less sales activity, but differently would you expect an acceleration in development at some point to weigh on margins? Thank you.
Michael Glover, Chief Financial Officer
Okay. In terms of development activity weighing on margins, no, I wouldn't expect that to weigh on margins. Actually, as you think about how we're moving forward, and if you see the more we franchise hotels around the world and we grow, actually that should help contribute. As we expand our brand portfolio, I feel like I think we're very confident we can continue to grow margins, and I don't believe it will be a drag on margins.
Elie Maalouf, Group Chief Executive
If you look beyond our more limited service franchise expansion globally, we currently have 13% of our distribution in the luxury and lifestyle segment, with 21% in our pipeline. These offerings come with significantly higher fees per key, which positively impacts our margins. We believe there is considerable growth potential ahead. Regarding the Iberostar openings, we are on track as expected; while timelines can vary, we anticipate completion this year and are engaged in ongoing discussions with the owners, which has been progress in line with our expectations. Concerning our new midscale brand, the value proposition for owners is clear. They have good assets that exist in various configurations—some with 80 rooms and others with 200, with room sizes ranging from 250 to 350 square feet. There will be various dimensions and service levels, but we will focus on a mid-scale limited service structure. It may not make sense for them to convert to Holiday Inn Express due to our strict criteria for design and service, as it is the largest successful retail brand in the world with a clear framework. This new brand allows owners to join the IHG system and become high-quality hotels while retaining some of their physical characteristics that work well for them, alongside benefits like lower distribution costs, a stronger loyalty program, better contracts, a robust global sales team, and overall enterprise strength. This approach is distinct from our established hard brands, positioning it more as a soft conversion brand. To address your last question about why this isn’t an extension of Avid: Avid is a defined product with rooms 30% smaller than Holiday Inn Express, usually around 200 square feet, offering a grab-and-go breakfast. In contrast, our new product will feature a hot breakfast and could have meeting spaces, as well as a great gym, making it a more comprehensive offering.
Leo Carrington, Analyst
Thank you very much, Mike and Elie.
Operator, Operator
We now turn to Alex Brignall with Redburn. Your line is open.
Alex Brignall, Analyst
Good morning. Thank you very much. I will try to rephrase my question. For 2024, our net unit growth, which analyst Jaafar mentioned, includes a portion of our growth this year from Iberostar. You've also indicated there are other mass conversion deals we can pursue. I'm curious, as we look ahead, should we consider the baseline or comparison for 2024 to be the 4% that includes a significant mass conversion deal, or the lower number around 3% that represents the organic net unit growth? I'm asking because, as you noted earlier, the Iberostar deal likely has different, possibly lesser economics compared to the organic pipeline openings or signings. This distinction is an important factor for modeling. Thank you.
Michael Glover, Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. Just to your last point about modeling and profitability what we actually said is that the fee take is yes as a percentage lower, but gross revenues not just room revenues and package revenues which in this all-inclusive resort business include food and beverage and other services. The actual gross room rate is much higher. We believe that in the net, it is either equivalent, if you modeled it to this equivalent room revenue or it nets out to a similar fee take. So we did not indicate that it would be lower profitability. We said it's a different fee structure, but equivalent to our current franchise arrangements. So I just want to make sure you understood. I think, look, we have opportunities for conversion and we're showing that in our signings and our openings that are either more portfolio as you have with Iberostar or more an addition of smaller portfolios or individual hotels. We think that the opportunity for some conversions is not limited just to partnerships like Iberostar, although we're always looking for more similar accretive profitable ones, but also we can build a trajectory from smaller portfolio owners that want to join our system or individual hotels of owners on our system. That's visible in our figures this year, where we might have a much higher proportion of openings and signings coming from conversion.
Elie Maalouf, Group Chief Executive
Yeah. We've been constantly gaining share globally from independents and other competitors. It's visible. 4% of open hotels, 10% of pipeline; so embedded already, we have a share gain before we even sign more hotels and I think we'll take share further in the market, so that's not just in the United States but that's really globally across all of our major markets.
Jaina Mistry, Analyst
Excellent. Thanks very much.
Operator, Operator
Our next question comes from André Juillard with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.
André Juillard, Analyst
Good morning. Two questions, if I may. First one about development and the branded market share. When we look at the US market as you mentioned, it's branded at around 70%. In Europe, it's almost contrary. Do you have visibility on what could be the market in the next few years? And what do you expect the branded market share to be in the main market in the next few years just to try to have a better visibility on how things could go down? Second question, about return to shareholders. You've been announcing €150 million share buyback program down at 47%. We see that you still got a margin of another on that side. If you had to announce some new returns, would you more focus on share buyback or on dividend?
Elie Maalouf, Group Chief Executive
Thank you. I'll take first question about branded market shares US versus Europe. I mean, you correctly observed that there is a large unbranded independent market in Europe, and that's a clear opportunity for us. Our brand portfolio today is really geared towards that. The addition of Kimpton, the addition of the net of voco and now with our new mid-scale conversion brand gives us more ability to have conversations with owners that have good quality, high-quality independent brands. So seeing their costs increase and seeing the desire to benefit from reach of global corporate customers, reach of global leisure customers, and access to our 115 million loyalty members around the world, I mean, these are irreplaceable platforms that an independent hotel, no matter how successful they are, how great the reputation is in the local market cannot construct an app like we have that is leading in the industry today increasing bookings 50% year-over-year through the app. I mean, those are platforms that are highly attractive independent hotels, and I think that we'll continue to progress our share. How the rest of the industry progresses? Well, we're focused on our trajectory in this market and see good opportunity.
Michael Glover, Chief Financial Officer
André, on the dividend question we really have three uses of cash. First use of that cash is to invest in the business for growth. The second use is to grow our ordinary dividend, and then the return surplus cash to shareholders. We have a target range roughly two, two and a half maybe couple, so we would look at that and with earnings per share growth kind of grow the dividend accordingly, and then excess cash go to shareholders. So we do prefer share buybacks when we return cash to shareholders. I'd look for us to continue to do that as our model will generate kind of great cash returns as we move forward.
André Juillard, Analyst
Okay. Thank you. Just a follow-up on my first question. I don't want to go too much into detail, but the particularity of Europe is that the average size of the hotel is relatively small. And that's one of the reasons why branded groups had more difficulties to develop in Europe compared to the US where it's very well standardized, don't you think that you'll probably have to consider some smaller hotels or different ways to accelerate growth in Europe?
Elie Maalouf, Group Chief Executive
I think the path is less related to size than the brand portfolio. Traditionally, our branded portfolios were much more prescriptive; the brands were what we call hardware brands that had very defined design criteria, size criteria, service criteria, and therefore it's much harder to adapt a very successful, even smaller independent hotel in Europe. Therefore, the gap was too far to reach a neutral win-win. But now with a more adaptable brand portfolio, voco, Vignette, Kimpton, our new mid-scale conversion brand, now we can meet owners' desires to maintain what's a very attractive hotel, which albeit may have fewer rooms but at higher rates. So really what matters in is what is the total opportunity? What's the total profitability of the hotel? So, 50, 60 rooms in a nice part of Europe can be equivalent gross room turnover of 120 rooms in some other parts of the world, even in the United States. I think the opportunity is there; it just was having the brand portfolio that unlocks that opportunity. Today, I think we're in a better position to do that.
Ali Naqvi, Analyst
Hi, good morning. Just a couple of questions from me, please. Are you seeing any improvement in the booking curve or visibility? And then is there any normalization there versus prior pandemic booking trends? Second question, just on your contract negotiations with corporates, how much of your room inventory or room nights does that cover in terms of pricing? And how much is left off the table since your last set of negotiations versus where ADR is trending now? Thank you.
Michael Glover, Chief Financial Officer
Sure Ali. Let me take the first one on kind of booking trends and the booking window. I think we are still seeing really pretty short booking windows. In fact, in half one, 62% of our bookings occurred within one week and only 15% were greater than 31 days. As you can see, the booking windows still remain short. But as we said, we do still have confidence in moving forward with RevPAR.
Elie Maalouf, Group Chief Executive
I may also add on the booking window. Part of it may be just the different way people are traveling and their comfort in using our technology to find the inventory and find the rooms by making our technology more accessible and easier to use. That’s not necessarily an unwelcome thing, because frankly, as the booking window tightens, it gives hotels sometimes those long-dated bookings came at substantial discounts. It's not necessarily an adverse development; you just have to adapt your revenue management systems and your revenue management philosophy to take advantage of it. I think we've been very nimble in that respect.
Ali Naqvi, Analyst
Understood. Thanks.
Operator, Operator
This concludes our Q&A. I'll now hand back to Elie Maalouf, CEO for closing remarks.
Elie Maalouf, Group Chief Executive
Thank you, everyone. It's been great to connect with you today. I look forward to seeing many of you in person over the next few days here in London. We're pleased with the first half we've had. Our teams have done an excellent job to position us for success ahead, and we look forward to the important next chapter of growth. Our next market communication will be our third quarter trading on 20 October. Thanks for your time and interest in IHG, and I look forward to catching up with you soon.