The Strategic Report on pages 2 to 51 was approved by the Board on 22 February 2016.

George Turner, Company Secretary

IHG at a glance

Our strategy for high-quality growth

We have more than 5,000 hotels and over 744,000 guest

rooms in our System in nearly 100 countries, and have

over 1,300 hotels in our development pipeline.

Our preferred brands

Our diverse portfolio of differentiated brands meets

the wide-ranging and ever-evolving needs of our guests,

and means we have a compelling and preferred offer

for our third-party hotel owners.

 

InterContinental ® Hotels & Resorts: The InterContinental Life		Kimpton ® Hotels & Restaurants: A different way to stay
International travel should always be alluring. Pioneers of new international destinations, we have expanded into over 60 countries. We are dedicated to those who appreciate and enjoy the glamour and exhilaration of fascinating places, of important conversations started and new stories written.		Heartfelt human connections make people’s lives better, and this drives everything we do. We layer our sophisticated yet playful design in our hotels, restaurants and bars with thoughtful amenities and perks to deliver our sincerely personal style of service. Kimpton is where inspired travel begins.
Hotel Indigo ® Hotels: Inspired by something new		EVEN ® Hotels: Where wellness is built in
Discovering something new on every trip is inspiring. With over 60 properties in culturally diverse locations across the globe, we are part of the pulse and the rhythm of a place, woven into the fabric, at the heart of it all.		Being on the road shouldn’t disrupt a wellness routine. We know that many travellers wish there were more options to stay healthier and happier away from home. That’s why we’re here with wellness-savvy staff, a best-in-class fitness experience, healthier food choices and natural, relaxing spaces.

The global hotel industry

The global hotel industry comprises approximately 15.9 million rooms, broadly segmented into branded (multiple hotels under the same brand) and independent (non-branded) hotels. Growth in demand is primarily driven by economic growth and an increasing trend for domestic and global travel. Over the long term, the lodging industry has grown broadly in line with gross domestic product (GDP). However, in the US, the largest market in terms of room numbers, growth in consumer spend on lodging has exceeded GDP growth by 2.6 percentage points per annum over the last 50 years.

There are several industry metrics that are widely recognised and used to track performance, including revenue per available room (RevPAR) and rooms supply growth. Globally, both of these indicators have seen robust growth in the last five years. In the US, our largest market, supply growth in the last five years has been significantly below the long-term average of 2 to 2.1 per cent. This, coupled with strong hotel demand in this market (3.3 per cent year-on-year growth over the past five years), has led to RevPAR growth.

The branded hotel market

Within the global hotel market, branded hotels account for 53 per cent of total rooms supply. However, in spite of ongoing consolidation, the market remains fragmented, with five of the leading branded hotel companies

(Hilton, Marriott, IHG, Accor and Starwood) accounting for 36 per cent of total open branded rooms, and 61 per cent of the branded development pipeline (hotels in planning and under construction but not yet opened).

According to Smith Travel Research, branded hotel companies have consistently increased their share of the global hotel market over the past 10 years, in addition to showing an increased resilience through the economic cycles. Larger players are also driving clear revenue outperformance, as well as benefiting from advantages in terms of economies of scale across a broad portfolio of hotels.

The different business models within the hotel industry

Depending on whether a hotel is branded or independent, there are different business models it can adopt. The four models typically seen in the industry are franchised, managed, owned and leased:

Whilst an owner-operated hotel enables the owner to have full control over hotel operations, it requires high capital investment. In contrast, for hotel-brand owners, a franchised or managed model enables quicker rooms growth due to lower capital investment, but this requires strong relationships with third-party hotel owners.

Global industry RevPAR ($)

Global rooms supply (millions of rooms)

Where the industry is heading

Major underlying drivers supporting growth in our industry At a local-market level, industry performance is impacted by short-term economic and political factors. However, in the long term, growth in the global hotel industry is driven by the following three major underlying drivers.   Economic Long-term macroeconomic trends substantially benefit the hotel industry. Global GDP growth of circa 2.6 per cent per annum in the last 10 years has contributed to an increase in disposable income and a rise in middle-class households, making travel affordable for more people. This trend can be observed in China, where the number of households earning above $35,000 per annum (a key income level, at which international travel becomes accessible), rose by 21 million from 2003 to 2013, with an additional 61 million households expected to pass this threshold by 2023.   Demographic The growth of an ageing population, which has the desire and means to travel, is another favourable driver shaping the industry. The global population over the age of 60 is expected to increase from approximately 800 million in 2013 to 2 billion by 2050, increasing overall demand for travel services.

Social Increased competition and capacity amongst airlines, lower fares, and the relaxation of travel and immigration restrictions in many regions are making international travel more viable for more people. International tourist travel is expected to increase by 3.3 per cent a year from 2010 to 2030, reaching 1.8 billion arrivals by 2030.

Multi-generational families are a growing guest segment

The Future of Chinese Travel In 2015, we partnered with global research company Oxford Economics to produce a comprehensive report evaluating the Chinese outbound travel opportunity.   In this report, we examine historical and current trends in Chinese outbound travel and how economic and demographic developments will shape demand for Chinese travel over the next decade.   Our industry-leading research provides a unique insight into which countries, and, for the first time, which cities, will benefit most from significant growth in Chinese outbound travel globally.   Visit www.ihgplc.com/chinesetravel to download the full report.

Continually evolving consumer needs The demographic profile of our guests continues to evolve and, in conjunction with the developments in digital technology, these trends are driving different accommodation needs and stay expectations.   This is evident across all age groups, and in particular amongst millennials, who are becoming an increasingly important guest group.   This group is also challenging some of the well-established norms of travel by having more flexible working patterns, seeking more personalised and unique guest experiences, and being more open to using

the sharing economy to meet their accommodation needs.   In addition, there has been a diversification of family travel needs as a result of an ageing population and changes to the traditional family unit. Multi-generational families, for example, are a growing guest segment, with over a third of respondents in a 2014 US AAA survey planning to make at least one multi-generational holiday in the upcoming year.   Another trend we are seeing is the blurring of business and leisure travel, with a growing number of professionals adding leisure days onto business trips.   Furthermore, as a result of these trends, accommodation providers increasingly need to cater for a more diverse set of guest needs and expectations.       A more dynamic competitive environment These key trends are changing the competitive landscape within the travel

industry. Hotels compete with each other and with travel intermediaries and companies offering alternative lodging solutions, such as peer-to-peer home rental companies.   While the long-term growth of branded hotels has outpaced that of the home rental market, some peer-to-peer home rental companies have capitalised on the small but fast-growing segment of urban short- to medium-term rentals, offering personalised, home-like stay experiences.   At IHG, we cater for these guest demands through our extended-stay hotel brands, boutique brand portfolio and branded residences offer. We are also investing heavily in our people to ensure they deliver unique and personalised stay experiences. Meanwhile, our proactive approach to building preferred brands, targeted at guest occasion segments, is enabling us to enhance our competitive position.

Third-party hotel owners pay:

(i) fees to IHG in relation to the licensing of our brands and, if applicable, hotel management services; and

(ii) assessments and contributions (other than for Kimpton and InterContinental) which are collected by IHG for specific use within the System Fund.

Disciplined approach to allocation of capital

IHG’s outlook on capital expenditure

Capital expenditure incurred by IHG can be summarised as follows.

Through our Winning Model, we focus on value-creation through building preferred brands, leveraging scale and delivering revenue through the lowest-cost, direct channels. Our Targeted Portfolio, together with Disciplined Execution and a commitment to doing business responsibly, will drive superior returns for our shareholders.

We measure our performance with a set of carefully selected key performance indicators (KPIs), which monitor our success in achieving our strategy and delivering high-quality growth.

Winning Model

IHG’s Winning Model is our framework for delivering superior value-creation through our brands, our people and our systems.

		Preferred brands delivered through our people

Having a strong portfolio of preferred brands is fundamental to our success. In a highly competitive industry, powerful, well-defined, consistent and well-known brands are influential in ensuring both guests and owners choose an IHG brand over a competitor’s. Our talented people play a critical role in providing consistently high standards of guest service and delivering each brand promise, and our ‘winning culture’ encourages and empowers them to bring each of our preferred brands to life.

Strong brands result in increased RevPAR, through higher occupancy rates and guests’ greater willingness to pay a premium to stay at their preferred brand. In turn, higher RevPAR results in better returns for our owners and fees for IHG. Informed by guest and owner insights, we are focused on driving brand preference for each of our brands.

See pages 20 and 21 for examples of our actions to build preferred brands in 2015.

 

		Build and leverage scale

Scale provides significant advantages in the hotel industry at the global, national and city level. The size of the IHG System, and our concentration in attractive markets and key gateway cities, allows us to benefit from economies of scale, which lead to higher margins and operating leverage. Scale also enables us to invest in our brands, including the technology required to support their continued growth, and to implement efficient sales and marketing and procurement practices, thereby increasing the advantages an IHG brand brings to owners.

IHG already benefits from substantial scale advantages, having over 744,000 rooms open at the end of 2015, a top-five market share position by rooms in eight out of our 10 priority markets, and System Funds contributed in 2015 totalling $1.6 billion. To achieve further targeted-scale benefits, we focus on delivering high-quality growth in the most attractive geographic markets, along with building distribution in global cities that benefit from very large international travel flows, focusing on the luxury segment.

See page 17 for examples of how we maximise the scale and efficiency of our operations and page 38 for details of our key openings in the luxury segment in 2015.

		Strong brand portfolio and loyalty programme

A portfolio of strong, complementary brands allows us to offer solutions for every guest need, which promotes cross-selling across different hotel brands. This, combined with a strong loyalty programme, increases awareness and recognition of the IHG brand, as well as each of the individual hotel brands, helping us to drive business. Whilst we continue to grow our brands to meet the differentiated needs of our guests, we are also focused on driving long-lasting and deep relationships with guests by recognising and rewarding them for their loyalty. In turn, this is helping to ensure that IHG Rewards Club, which has more than 92 million members worldwide, is one of the largest and most preferred loyalty programmes in the market.

See page 22 for examples of our actions to build a strong brand portfolio and loyalty programme in 2015.

 

		Effective channel management

We drive demand to our hotel brands through strong brand awareness and effective revenue management practices, reducing distribution costs and delivering better returns for our owners. Our direct channels (digital and voice) are less costly to owners than third-party intermediaries and we therefore drive demand for our hotels through these channels and also manage revenue per booking, delivering the highest-quality revenues to IHG hotels at the lowest possible cost.

See page 23 for examples of our actions to build strong channels in 2015.

		Superior owner proposition

A strong owner proposition, preferred brands, effective operational support and long-standing owner relationships play a vital role in making us the brand of choice for owners. We are committed to delivering a compelling and preferred owner offer, and we continually review and enhance our owner proposition in many ways. Specific examples include the following:

•

Evolving our hotel support model in The Americas and Europe to deliver a more owner-centric, customised offer. In The Americas, for example, we have introduced dedicated franchise performance support leads who act as a single point of contact for owners, helping to establish strategies and activities that drive superior hotel performance. These leads will also help to navigate owners to IHG specialists in the fields of Revenue Management, Sales and Marketing, Operations and Guest Experience.

•

Continuing to invest heavily in our training platforms, including ‘IHG Frontline’, which will provide critical training to the circa 90,000 employees who will be recruited by IHG in the managed estates, in addition to a large number of staff in our franchised properties. In addition, we also continue to invest in developing our range of proprietary revenue-driving tools and services, such as Revenue Management for Hire, Price Optimisation and IHG Way of Sales.

•

Running our annual, global Owner HeartBeat satisfaction survey, which yields valuable insight from our owners on the relative strengths and weaknesses of our proposition and enables us to deliver targeted enhancements to our offer.

•

Maintaining strong owner relationship management and working with the IHG Owners Association (which represents the interests of our hotel owners globally) to deliver joint initiatives.

See www.ihgplc.com/ihgowners for more information.

Disciplined Execution

We recognise that successful delivery of our strategy

for high-quality growth requires Disciplined Execution.

We prioritise investment in our technology platforms and

our people, as well as delivering operational efficiencies.

Employee engagement

87.3%

of survey respondents in 2015 were engaged,

an improvement of

30ppt

since 2007.

Corporate hires

53%

of all positions filled below Executive Committee

level in 2015 have been internal moves.

Awards

15+

received in 2015 for our people practices.

Room to be involved

We communicate with employees on matters relating to the Group’s business and performance, and we share information on people, policies and news across IHG through various channels, including conferences, team meetings and our intranet site. We encourage employees to give regular feedback to ensure IHG meets expectations and delivers on its commitments – this is formally done through the Employee Engagement survey, the results of which are a KPI.

Room to grow

Our people are given access to the required support, experience and training, and are provided with development opportunities.

Room for you

We reward and recognise colleagues for their contributions, and value the significance of their lives beyond work. When our people perform at their best, our business performs at its best.

2. Developing leaders to maximise individual and team performance

We are committed to developing our leaders and launched a number of programmes and tools in 2015 that will ensure that building people capability around leadership becomes an everyday part of working at IHG. One example is the IHG General Manager Development Programme, developed in conjunction with the IHG Owners Association, which develops high-performing General Managers who consistently keep our brand promises, inspire their teams, and deliver great results.

3. Building the right skills in frontline colleagues

As a service business, building the skills of our people to deliver a consistent branded guest experience is crucial. We continue to invest heavily in this area, such as by launching ‘IHG Frontline’ in 2015, our online platform that enables hotel colleagues to build knowledge and skills around brands, service and operations.

4. Building a strong performance culture

We have established a ‘winning culture’ and a framework to drive high performance, where regions and functions are aligned to the internal performance measures that most effectively drive business performance across our global organisation. This ensures that our hotels offer great guest experiences through consistent brands, which enable our brands to win and deliver returns to owners, and that our corporate colleagues focus on what matters most to deliver against our priorities.

This framework, together with our hotel and corporate talent and leadership programmes, is designed to enable our colleagues to respond with speed, agility and a strong focus on driving higher performance, which comprises our ‘winning culture’.

Diversity and inclusion

As a global organisation operating in nearly 100 countries around the world, we recognise the importance and benefit of ensuring our workforce fully represents the communities in which we operate and the guests who stay in our hotels. As at 31 December 2015:

Please see pages 52 and 65 for more information on Board diversity and succession planning.

More information on our employees can be found on page 153 and the ‘Our people’ section of the Responsible Business Report (see www.ihgplc.com/responsiblebusiness).

Holiday Inn hotels refurbished since 2007

3,300+

Hotels signed up to adopt next-generation

Holiday Inn Express hotel design

475+

Crowne Plaza rooms in the pipeline

23,181

“Positioned against a differentiated set of guest needs and occasions, EVEN and HUALUXE are clear examples of IHG’s strong commitment to innovation.”

Strengthening our established brands

Holiday Inn brand family enhancements

With over 460,000 rooms, the Holiday Inn brand family is the largest midscale brand internationally. Since 2007, we have completed the industry’s largest ever brand refresh, together with our owners refurbishing over 3,300 hotels, opening 1,500 new hotels and removing 1,100 existing hotels. We continue to innovate on the guest experience for the Holiday Inn brand family, and, in 2015:

Crowne Plaza growth

With 406 open hotels, Crowne Plaza is one of the largest upscale brands globally (source: Smith Travel Research) and our ambition to make it the preferred choice for the modern-day business traveller remains unchanged. In 2015, we made good progress in fulfilling that ambition. For example, we rolled out complimentary Wi-Fi to all our hotels in The Americas and Europe and have begun offering ‘Energy Essentials’, our new food and beverage concept for guests to stay focused during the day.

We piloted our new ‘WorkLife’ room prototype, a flexible room designed to maximise productivity whilst also catering for all the travel needs of a business professional. In addition, we also made important enhancements to our business-to-business meetings proposition, reinforcing Crowne Plaza’s position as a leading business-meetings brand.

We continue to focus on driving consistency and greater quality across our portfolio, with over 55 per cent of our US estate built or renovated since 2010. These efforts are now delivering better outcomes for Crowne Plaza, such as a 6.1 per cent increase year on year in global RevPAR and a third consecutive year of improvements in guest satisfaction.

Developing our newer brands

Positioned against a differentiated set of guest needs and occasions, EVEN Hotels (targeting wellness-minded travellers) and HUALUXE Hotels and Resorts (targeting the accomplished Chinese business elite) are clear examples of IHG’s strong commitment to innovation. For both of these brands, our focus in 2015 has been on securing distribution in prime locations in order to build equity with guests and owners and to demonstrate the distinct nature of these brands.

EVEN Hotels

Following the opening of our first two EVEN Hotels in Rockville (MD) and Norwalk (CT) in The Americas in 2014, we opened a further property in New York Times Square South in 2015, and completed additional signings in attractive locations, such as Miami and Seattle. These properties, alongside additional pipeline properties in, for example, New York and Omaha, take the total hotel pipeline to eight. Our investment in developing our first two EVEN hotels has allowed us to refine the brand’s proposition and commercial proof of concept, which, in turn, is helping to build momentum in signings.

HUALUXE Hotels and Resorts

In 2015, we opened our first three HUALUXE Hotels and Resorts properties in Haikou, Yangjiang and Nanchang (Greater China), which have been well-received by guests. With a further 21 hotels in the pipeline in prime cities, including Shanghai and Beijing, we are focused on building distribution in attractive locations in key cities across Greater China.

Making loyalty more customised, tailored and rewarding

By building a strong, complementary brand portfolio, we are able to offer solutions for multiple guest needs, increasing our ability to cross-sell across brands and to establish lifetime relationships with our guests. Guests with increased loyalty to IHG have a higher spend per stay, driving higher RevPAR premiums, lowering distribution costs and consequently strengthening our owner offer. In addition, a strong loyalty programme is also critical to increasing awareness and recognition of the IHG brand portfolio.

Supported by deep consumer insights, including our latest 2016 Trends Report (see box below right), we are enriching our loyalty proposition by taking a more relationship-focused approach. In 2015, we have made important enhancements to IHG Rewards Club, our loyalty programme, enabling us to offer more personal, relevant and rewarding connections across our sizeable membership base.

Introducing a new membership level

Launched in July 2015, our new IHG Rewards Club membership tier, Spire Elite, has been designed to recognise and reward our most loyal guests, building an even deeper relationship with those members who stay with us most frequently.

Through Spire Elite, we are better able to reward members who reach this status, by offering new benefits and choices. For example, these members receive 100 per cent more bonus points on every qualifying stay – an industry first – and, upon reaching Spire Elite status, the choice between receiving 25,000 points or gifting Platinum Elite level status to a friend or family member for a year. We have also restructured qualification requirements for all membership levels in 2015 to make it easier for our members to be rewarded for their loyalty and achieve Gold Elite or Platinum Elite level status.

We also announced that, from May 2016, we will expire all points for IHG Rewards Club members if they have not earned or redeemed any points at all in the previous 12 months, so that we can reward the members who stay with us most often.

More meaningful guest engagement

In 2015, we have enhanced our customer relationship management system, allowing us to offer a more personal experience. Across our hotels, new tools have been introduced to provide hotel staff with more information on arriving guests, including details of previous stay experiences and specific stay preferences. With this information, our hotels are able to provide a more tailored guest experience during the stay.

Through a series of trials with new programme members, we have also refined our communication strategy, to ensure we offer guests the most relevant and timely information across multiple channels, such as mobile, email and web. Also launched in 2015, ‘Accelerate’, our multi-brand promotion, is enabling us to engage with IHG Rewards Club members in more appealing ways, by offering a wide range of relevant rewards that appeal across member levels. This promotion has already seen strong uptake among our members.

Relevant rewards

Strategic promotional partnerships play an important role in enhancing, and improving the visibility of, our loyalty proposition, as well as allowing us to provide unique experiences for our members. Our relationship with Uber (US only), announced in 2015, enables IHG Rewards Club members to request cab rides and set ride reminders through the award-winning IHG App. Likewise, new Uber users in the US now receive 2,000 IHG Rewards Club points and $20 off their first ride with Uber.

Through the launch of IHG Business Rewards in April 2015, an extension of IHG Rewards Club, we have improved our corporate loyalty offer, enabling travel managers to earn IHG

Rewards Club points for their companies’ business in a single global programme. IHG Business Rewards is providing opportunities for us to improve relationships with our corporate accounts.

Finally, we have relaunched our Rewarding Experiences online catalogue, which showcases a wide range of points-redemption options, ranging from electronic products through to air miles, available through IHG Rewards Club for members of all levels. Digital Rewards, for example, appeals to guests who only wish to redeem a few points by giving them the ability to instantly download music, books and movies. Meanwhile, IHG Rewards Club Auctions lets members use their points to bid on exclusive once-in-a-lifetime experiences and prize packages.

The enhancements to our loyalty proposition in 2015 are already exciting guests and leading to stronger commercial outcomes. For example, we have experienced a year-on-year increase of 1.2 per cent in the proportion of revenue contributed by loyalty members, alongside a significant acceleration in enrolments to IHG Rewards Club across all regions.

3. Making our direct channels the preferred way to book

Doing the right thing in the right way allows us to have a positive impact on the lives of all those who interact with IHG.

Corporate responsibility

We are committed to making our communities a better place for all. Our colleagues around the world genuinely care about the well-being of our guests and the impact we have on local communities and businesses. We work to develop new and better ways to assist owners to build and operate IHG-branded hotels, creating sustainable shared value for our brands and our stakeholders, as well as addressing social and environmental challenges. Our five-year corporate responsibility targets, released in September 2013, focus on measuring the positive impact we have, which is part of our commitment to responsible business practices (see box to the right).

Social and community

Each one of our hotels is a central part of its community, from creating jobs and stimulating local economic opportunities, to providing shelter in times of need. Our social and communities agenda focuses on two core programmes:

Environment

We take steps to manage our environmental impact in a responsible way. By delivering more environmentally sustainable hotels, we can drive cost efficiencies for owners as well as meet the expectations of all our stakeholders. We achieve this objective through our core environmental initiative:

Human rights

We focus on those areas of human rights most relevant to our activities, and we work to ensure our values are reflected consistently across our business. Building on our launch of the human rights standard in 2014, in 2015 we launched an e-learning module to raise further awareness of our human rights approach. We are a signatory to the UN Global Compact, aligning our operations and strategies with the 10 universal principles, which include commitments to human rights and labour standards. We are part of the Business in the Community cross-industry working group on human rights, as well as the International Tourism Partnership’s Human Trafficking Working Group.

We report on diversity in our supply chain and set targets to ensure that corporate responsibility criteria, including human rights standards, are integrated into the selection and evaluation process for preferred suppliers. Our Vendor Code of Conduct sets out those standards to which we require our supply-chain operators to adhere.

Risk management

Our robust and effective risk management system continues

to evolve, enabling our business to achieve its strategic

objectives, and deliver sustainable, long-term growth

and a commitment to responsible business practices.

Our Winning Model and risk

The combination of our strategy (see pages 14 and 15) and business model (see pages 12 and 13) creates both opportunities and inherent risks and uncertainties. The Board is ultimately accountable for the effectiveness of the risk management and internal control systems, and is supported by the Audit Committee, the Executive Committee and other delegated committees, which oversee our risk management system and ensure that risks are appropriately identified and managed within IHG’s risk appetite.

Risk appetite

IHG’s risk appetite is reflective of the nature and extent of risk that the Board and IHG are willing to take and manage in pursuit of our strategic and other objectives. This is then cascaded through the goals we set, the strategy we choose, the decisions we make and how we allocate resources. Specific limits and guidelines for risk-taking are reflected in our governance committees and structures, our policies (eg our delegation of authority policy), and the targets we select.

Our risk management system

Our system for managing risk is fully integrated with the way we run the business through our culture, our management controls and our reporting. Our Global Risk Management function is responsible for the support, enhancement and monitoring of the effectiveness of this system, which encompasses the key areas below.

In 2015, we have assessed in further detail the principal risks relating to IHG’s reputation and how we will enable future performance.

Risk description		Trend		Impact		How do we manage these risks?
Safety and security Safety and security risks are inherent to all hotel operations, complicated by continuing geopolitical instability threats in markets where IHG operates. Failure to operate an appropriate risk management system which safeguards our guests and employees could impact IHG’s reputation.						•  Safety and security is of paramount importance to IHG and an extensive safety and security risk management system is in place. •  The safety and security risk management system includes risk and threat assessment, policies and standards, training programmes, performance and risk monitoring, and reporting and analysis. •  Our operational safety and security teams comprise team members with extensive subject matter expertise and experience, who provide support to line management to equip them to plan for, and respond to, incidents when they occur.
Cybersecurity and information governance Threats to the security of guest and other sensitive information held and used by IHG are increasing and failure to manage these could impact our operations, result in fines and undermine stakeholder trust in our business.						•  We take cybersecurity and information governance very seriously and have applied risk-based methods to build capability and resilience into our systems and processes. We manage information security to contain the risk and reduce the Group’s exposure, tightly controlling sensitive information through limited and monitored access. •  We continue to aim to be fully compliant with Payment Card Industry – Data Security Standards (PCI – DSS), using tools and services with respect to payment-card processing from leading specialist third-party providers.
Programme and project delivery IHG is currently delivering a number of large and complex business change programmes and failure to manage these effectively could impact the value realised from our investments.						•  Our programme management capability is overseen by our Strategic Portfolio Management team who ensure strategic alignment and prioritisation of key programmes, develop organisational capability through training and implementation of the Group’s project delivery approaches and tools, and independently monitor the progress of key organisational change programmes. •  This team is supported by regional and functional project management teams, who manage and monitor specific programmes and projects.
Legal, regulatory and ethical compliance While the hotel sector is not subject to stringent industry-specific regulations, the global business environment is evolving, with regulators enhancing their enforcement activity.						•  Our regulatory compliance programme works to identify and respond to relevant regulatory requirements. These include, but are not limited to, anti-bribery and corruption, data privacy and antitrust. These programmes consist of policies, communications and training, and are supported by confidential disclosure channels and ongoing monitoring procedures. •  Additionally, we continue to monitor key legal and ethical developments relevant to our business model, intellectual property and operations.
Financial management and control Increased public scrutiny, litigation and regulatory investigation have once again highlighted the need for companies to ensure that their financial reporting, controls and management systems are robust.						•  The maintenance of a sound financial reporting and control environment is achieved through an effective policy framework, training programmes, and layered performance and review processes. •  IHG has a mature, experienced and stable global finance function, encompassing specialist groups including, but not limited to, the following teams: Group Tax, Group Treasury, Procurement and Cost Efficiency; Global BSC Operations; Global and Regional Financial Planning and Analysis; Global Financial Reporting; and Governance and Compliance (including compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act 2002).

Viability statement