Hilton Group profits 14% down but still ahead of expectations

The Hilton Group said last week that profit in the first four months of the year was "a little ahead" of its expectations despite being 14% lower than last year.

Hilton said the decline in group profit was caused mainly by the impact of 11 September on its hotel business.

It added that recovery in its hotels in Europe had slowed during March and April and, although forecasting was difficult because of the continued trend towards late bookings, it was confident about attracting more guests in the second half of the year, with room rates rising after that.

Revenue per available room (revpar) across the group's hotels fell in all but one region during the first four months of 2002. Hilton's hotels in the Middle East were the only group to record an increase, with revpar up by 4% on last year.

The greatest decline in like-for-like revpar was at the group's hotels in the Americas, where it was down by 11.5% compared with the same period last year. In the UK revpar fell by 6.4%. Group revpar fell by 4.3%.