Huazhu Group Limited Announces Preliminary Results for Hotel Operations in the Third Quarter of 2020

SHANGHAI, China, Nov. 05, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Huazhu Group Limited (NASDAQ: HTHT and HKEX: 1179) (“Huazhu”, “we” or “our”), a world-leading hotel group, today announced preliminary results for hotel operations in the third quarter ended September 30, 2020 (“Q3 2020”).

Recovery continued in Q3 2020

During Q3 2020, despite some mini-outbreaks in several cities, our occupancy rate recovery continued, thanks to China’s effective control of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, our average daily room rate had also recovered gradually along with the occupancy rate. More importantly, leisure traveling was the key driver to lead this recovery, which had resulted in outstanding performance of our upper-midscale and upscale brand hotels.

Steigenberger Hotels AG and its subsidiaries (“DH”) operating performances had also recovered steadily from July until mid-September 2020. However, this recovery trend was temporarily paused since late September due to the second wave of COVID-19 outbreak in European countries. To mitigate the effects of this situation, we are taking further cost and cash flow measures, such as deferred rental payments, reducing or eliminating discretionary corporate spending and capital expenditures, etc. As of October 31, 2020, 91% or 107 of DH hotels were in operation.

Starting from Q3 2020, we have been evaluating our soft brand hotel portfolio and removing hotels with poor product quality or those that do not fit Huazhu’s long-term development strategy from our portfolio. We believe this will help to improve the hotels’ performance and attract like-minded franchisees to join our network. Accordingly, we are now revising our hotel closure target to 550-600 hotels for 2020, up from our initial expectation of 350-450 hotels.

In Q3 2020, Huazhu expects net revenues to increase 0% to 2% year-over-year or to decline 10% to 12% if excluding the addition of DH.

Operating Results: Legacy-Huazhu⁽¹⁾

Operational hotels (excluding hotels under requisition)

Same-hotel operational data by class

Mature hotels in operation for more than 18 months (excluding hotels under requisition)

Operating Results: Legacy-DH⁽⁴⁾

Hotel Portfolio by Brand

About Huazhu Group Limited

Originated in China, Huazhu Group Limited is a world-leading hotel group. As of September 30, 2020, Huazhu operated 6,507 hotels with 634,087 rooms in operation in 16 countries. Huazhu’s brands include Hi Inn, Elan Hotel, HanTing Hotel, JI Hotel, Starway Hotel, Orange Hotel, Crystal Orange Hotel, Manxin Hotel, Madison Hotel, Joya Hotel, Blossom House, and Ni Hao Hotel. Upon the completion of the acquisition of DH on January 2, 2020, Huazhu added five brands to its portfolio, including Steigenberger Hotels & Resorts, Maxx by Steigenberger, Jaz in the City, IntercityHotel and Zleep Hotel. In addition, Huazhu also has the rights as master franchisee for Mercure, Ibis and Ibis Styles, and co-development rights for Grand Mercure and Novotel, in the pan-China region.

Huazhu’s business includes leased and owned, manachised and franchised models. Under the lease and ownership model, Huazhu directly operates hotels typically located on leased or owned properties. Under the manachise model, Huazhu manages manachised hotels through the on-site hotel managers that Huazhu appoints, and Huazhu collects fees from franchisees. Under the franchise model, Huazhu provides training, reservations and support services to the franchised hotels, and collects fees from franchisees but does not appoint on-site hotel managers. Huazhu applies a consistent standard and platform across all of its hotels. As of September 30, 2020, Huazhu operates 16 percent of its hotel rooms under lease and ownership model, and 84 percent under manachise and franchise models.

For more information, please visit Huazhu’s website: .

Safe Harbor Statement Under the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: The information in this release contains forward-looking statements which involve risks and uncertainties. Such factors and risks include our anticipated growth strategies; our future results of operations and financial condition; economic conditions; the regulatory environment; our ability to attract and retain customers and leverage our brands; trends and competition in the lodging industry; the expected growth of demand for lodging; and other factors and risks detailed in our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Any statements contained herein that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements, which may be identified by terminology such as “may,” “should,” “will,” “expect,” “plan,” “intend,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “potential,” “forecast,” “project” or “continue,” the negative of such terms or other comparable terminology. Readers should not rely on forward-looking statements as predictions of future events or results.

Huazhu undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless required by applicable law.

Contact Information

Huazhu Investor Relations

Tel: 86 (21) 6195 9561

Email:

 ______________________

(1) Legacy-Huazhu refers to Huazhu and its subsidiaries, excluding DH.

(2) The reasons for hotel closures mainly include non-compliance with our brand standards, operating losses, and property-related issues. In Q3 2020, we temporarily closed 17 hotels for brand upgrade and business model change purposes.

(3) As of September 30, 2020, 83 hotels were requisitioned by governmental authorities.

(4) Legacy-DH refers to DH.

(5) As of September 30, 2020, a total of 12 DH brand hotels were temporarily closed due to COVID-19.

(6) As of September 30, 2020, 4 Ni Hao hotels were included in the operational hotel total for Elan Hotels and 27 Ni Hao hotels were included in the pipeline total for Elan Hotels.