Leisure travelers contribute to record breaking growth for InterContinental Hotels Global Sales team Middle East Q3 results

The entire Middle East Global Sales team celebrated the success recently at a two-day team building event at the InterContinental Hotel Abu Dhabi. At the annual meeting, Mara Campi, Director of Global Sales Middle East also announced:

• Revenue generated by InterContinental Hotels Group Global Sales ME Team was 76 per cent greater compared to the same period last year.

• The biggest contributor to the growth came from the emerging leisure travel market.

• The Middle East received 52 per cent of the entire revenue share compared to Europe, 27 per cent, Asia Pacific, 16 per cent, and the rest to Africa and the Americas.

• Within the Middle East, the countries benefiting of the largest revenue shares include Saudi Arabia, 43 per cent, UAE and Qatar, 24 per cent, Lebanon, 12 per cent, and Egypt, 12 per cent.

Significantly, the ICME Voucher Programme has proved a great success in the regional market, attracting 159 per cent growth over the same period last year.

"The results speak for themselves but what they demonstrate is that InterContinental Hotels Group is poised for further growth and is keen to reinforce its position as the largest multi-branded hotel operator in the Middle East,"

said Denis Johnson, InterContinental Hotels Group, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Middle East and Africe.

As the largest hotel operator in the Middle East, InterContinental Hotels Group has more than 70 InterContinental, Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn properties across the UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Kenya, Eritrea, Zambia and Gabon.

The Group's team building event further celebrated the ongoing achievements of the Global Sales team. InterContinental Hotels Group Global Sales Managers gathered at the two-day event to take part in a quarterly meeting - to provide focus for the quarter ahead - where employees already started work on targets for 2006.

With the business achievements set for the next quarter, the team spent the second day building internal relations. The Team Building Day - coordinated by Wendy Shaw, Area Training Manager IHG UAE & Qatar - aimed to strengthen relations and boost team spirit by getting to know everyone better.