The world's biggest hotel owner will increase the 270 hotels it now has in Asia Pacific to close to 600 over the next three to four years. The company said earlier this summer it would double the number of hotels it has in Greater China, which includes Hong Kong and Taiwan, by 2015, but also expects strong growth in countries such as Vietnam and Thailand.

China will become InterContinental's second-biggest market after the US, where the company has about 3,500 hotels. Although the number of hotels in Asia will remain much smaller, the sites have around three times as many rooms as those in the US and are mainly managed by InterContinental rather than franchisees, which is more profitable. The company already has 132 hotels in Greater China, and earlier this week signed up to another four hotels with 700 rooms in Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China.

InterContinental returned to profit in the first half of 2010, as business travellers in the US and Asia took to the road again. Demand for rooms in London was strong, as financial centres recovered, with the InterContinental on Park Lane seeing a 15pc increase its revenue per available room (RevPAR), a key hotel industry measure.

The company has also carried out a $1bn revamp of the Holiday Inn chain.