Hello. Thank you, and welcome to this Q&A session. I am Elie Maalouf, Chief Executive Officer of IHG Hotels & Resorts. Hopefully, you have all had a chance to watch the results presentation, which we made available at 7:00 A.M. U.K. It featured myself and Michael Glover, our Chief Financial Officer. We also released the latest episode of "IHG Checks In On," featuring Heather Balsley, our Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer, and Jolie Fleming, our Chief Product and Technology Officer. The episode provides a closer look at how we are leveraging artificial intelligence to get closer to the guests, transform the search and discovery process, and further enhance the overall guest experience. Before we open the lines to take the first question, I will briefly summarize our strong performance in the first half of 2026. Our global RevPAR grew by 4.1% with growth across all three regions and underpinned by the breadth of our geographic footprint, the depth of our brands, and the resilience of our operating model. We delivered gross system growth of 6.5% and net system growth of 5%, driven by record development activity with openings and signings both up 8% year-on-year on an organic basis. We expanded our fee margin by 120 basis points and grew EBIT by 10%. Adjusted earnings per share grew 13%, supported by our share buyback. In summary, we made excellent progress in the first half on our strategic priorities, and we are confident in the strength of our enterprise platform and the attractive long-term growth outlook. With that, let me turn it over to the operator to take the first question. Your first question comes from the line of Jamie Rollo from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Three questions, please. You have obviously delivered very strong net system growth in China again, but also we have seen some weak market data continuing through Q2 into Q3 on RevPAR. Could you talk a bit about why you think RevPAR has slipped back in China, and is there any risks that impact owner economics and your net system growth going forwards? Secondly, just a question on the fee algorithm at the group level. Your helpful slide 47 shows constant currency fee growth for the three regions combined at 5.2%, well below the sum of 4% constant currency RevPAR and 5% available rooms. There are quite a few items on the slide you are giving behind that. Could you please talk through those items and when you think that regional fee algo picks back up again? Then finally, just a general industry question. Some of your U.S. peers have been reducing charge outs to help owner economics. Some are under pressure to share credit card income. I know you're an early mover a couple of years ago on your reward night reimbursements, but are you considering any future changes to charge outs, and would that be system fund P&L or would that be IHG P&L? Thank you. Thank you, Jamie. Let me start with China. We're very pleased with our performance in China and our growth in China in the first half of the year. We had very strong RevPAR growth in the first quarter, 5.7%, as you noted, 0.8% in Q2. For the half it was 3.1%, which is very pleasing. If you recall, for a number of years I've been saying that China would bottom out, and it did in the fourth quarter of last year, and I think it's just turned up. We said it would not be a vertical V-shaped turn up, but it's been gradually turning up. What happened in the first quarter, in the first quarter, you had a very strong Chinese New Year that had additional days added to it, and then the government threw in some new school holidays in the first quarter. We think the combination of those pulled some business, some travel, some leisure forward from Q2. We still printed a positive RevPAR in Q2. We're confident in the long-term potential in China. If you looked at it by tiers, Tier 1 and Tier 4 did very well. Tier 1 is major cities, and then you've got Hong Kong and Taiwan. Tier 4 is leisure and resorts, and they did very well. Tier 2 and Tier 3 saw some softness in business transient, but that's not new. It's been going on for quite some time, and I think that overall China has been doing better. As you noted, we've had record development activity in China for a number of years now, and every year we're hitting new records. I think this year will be another record of signings and openings. We've reached 900 hotels. I believe we're going to reach 1,000 open hotels by the end of the year, with roughly another 600 under development, taking share in the marketplace. Why is that happening consistently? It's happening because you still have a large economy, 20+ trillion, growing between 4% and 5%, not as much as it used to grow, but on a bigger base. You have record exports, different products that are exporting. It's EVs, batteries, technology. They're leaders now among the leaders in artificial intelligence. A different economy, but still growing well. You have a middle class that's still growing. Importantly, while not every sector of the economy is doing very well, like the residential sector is still in a slow, but certain turnaround, but it's slow in the residential sector. Travel is strong. Domestic trips are up. International inbound now to China is a growing segment. What you see is that travel among the sectors is still a favored thing. Our occupancy continues to actually improve in the first half of the year after being flat during the negative RevPAR years. We do not see signs of oversupply. We are adding a strong level of new openings, but it is being absorbed in our system, and we actually saw some rate growth too, across the full China business. We are confident that the midterm, the long-term China outlook is good. Look at the profit performance in China. It is up 25% year-over-year. For us, China is not just a growing and large market, it is a profitable market and getting more profitable. On the fee algorithm, let me turn that over to Michael, and then I will pick up on the industry question you had. Hi, Jamie. Thanks for the question. You might expect we will have a similar answer to what we have had in the past. The vast majority of the fee triangulation difference that you raise is really around the development activity and the record level of openings and the growth in system size that we have seen. Newly opened hotels typically take time to reach realized, stabilized occupancy, room rate, overall hotel revenue. Most agreements have a graduated fee structure that steps up over the first few years of operation. As a result, the full fee revenue contribution from recent openings is only partially reflected initially, and builds over time as the hotels mature and fee structures step up. We said in the past that that will begin to narrow with time. Actually at the group level, you have actually seen about a 40 basis points improvement year-over-year in that fee triangulation. In some markets like the U.S., you have seen 110 basis points of improvement year-over-year as that has happened. We do believe that will continue to improve. There is always some other noise in there, but really that is what is driving that, and that is a good problem to have because we have been driving that system size growth. We want to continue to drive that growth. As it stabilizes, it will normalize. I will pass it back to Elie on owner economics. Yeah. Thank you, Michael. Look, this is our fifth year in a row of increasing net system size growth gradually with a focus on fees, with a focus on high quality estate. We are building a sustainable model of higher net system size growth, and you can see it building. We would rather have that going on and some lag in when those fees come in. But the good news is there are more fees coming. We are not putting a ceiling on where our system growth would reach. But at some point, in theory, when we reach a cruising altitude and level off that cruising altitude, then the closing of the lag will accelerate. But I would rather continue our growth and have the lag catch up with us as more fees come in. On your industry question. I am not going to comment on what others have said and done. I would first say to you, as you would know, Jamie, some things are read acrosses to other businesses, some things are not. Let's not assume that everything is a read across. Let's not assume that every situation is different. We have a different distribution in the Americas than some competitors, different system fund arrangements. So, we have a slightly different situation. Overall, I would say, not just in the Americas, but globally, we have a very competitive owner value proposition and fee structure really designed to drive attractive returns for owners. And look, we are all aware that there have been cost pressures over the last couple of years across all industries. In our industry too, and they have affected owner economics, and that is why we have been in front. Starting in 2024, you mentioned yourself, we lowered the loyalty assessments, we increased the reward night reimbursement rates, we reduced the cost of our Ignite marketing program, all of which directly improved hotel level economics for owners. They are not theoretical. These improve the P&L at hotels by real basis points, by real cash flow. On top of that, we have lowered the cost of our F&B programs in our mainstream and our premium hotels. We have lowered the cost of our new build prototypes, our conversion packages, now that we have more conversion brands. We have broadened the categories offered by our procurement program to lower the cost across hotel construction and operations. And then today in the [SCA], you saw that we talked about a new commercial services program that we have been piloting in the Americas. I guess it is more than a pilot. It is in 500 hotels now, and it is expected to broaden to the full region very soon. And it is going to lower the cost of that commercial services program to 75% of the participating hotels. So we have a holistic approach to dealing on owner cost because look, owner success is fundamental to our success. We can only be successfully asset light if they are successfully asset heavy. We recognize it. We have an owners' association where the representatives are elected by the owners with whom we discuss all these matters, get alignment, and proceed with it. So I mean, our relationship has been productive, constructive with owners. None of these improvements in costs that I mentioned earlier are on our P&L. They are all within sort of the general system fund looking to create value for owners. Look, where we are lowering the cost of these programs, it is not sort of just a straight discount. It is using the scale of our growing system fund, using the efficiencies that we are finding through new processes, technology, now artificial intelligence, to create more efficiency from the greater scale. And as every good operator, sharing some of the efficiencies of that scale with your partners. And so I think that IHG benefits, but our owners have been benefiting from that scale, and I think we are in a pretty good place on it. Thank you very much. Next question. Your next question comes the line of Jaina Mistry from Barclays. Your line is open. Hi, Elie. Hi, Michael. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I have three as well. Just on NUG, I see on your website you have consensus of 4.7%. Do you still see upside risk to that number given what is happening in the Middle East and any risk from the Revo bankruptcy in Germany? Secondly, also on NUG, actually. Elie, you mentioned that the gap between RevPAR and NUG versus what you report on fee revenues will narrow as you hit cruising altitude on NUG. What is the achievable run rate here? Is mid-single digit the right run rate, so should it start to narrow in 2027? My very final question, just going back onto your owner relationships and what you were saying before, you mentioned not everything is weighted across. IHG obviously has the Owners Association. Just how differently does this position IHG in the market versus your peers? Thank you. Jaina, I will take the first one. I am sure Elie will come in on the next two. You are right, consensus does show NUG at 4.7%. We would not call any upside to that risk. We would call that opportunity. You may remember at the first quarter result, consensus was around 4.5%, and we said there was more opportunity to the upside than there was risk to the downside. Over time, consensus has moved up to 4.7%. We have delivered 5% in the first half, and as we look at it, we do feel like there is opportunity to do better than the 4.7%, but it is in and about the right place. A tenth of a point is only about 1,000 rooms on a system size of about a little over 1 million rooms. We feel confident in where that is, and certainly, we would not be expecting any number below that. All right. Thank you, Michael. Your question was on when do we reach this cruising altitude, and what does it do to the triangulation from there? I think there are really two questions there. I think there was actually one other aspect of your question that Michael did not touch on, the Revo bankruptcy. We have very little exposure to Revo. We are aware of them. We have a few hotels with them. We have very little exposure to that, and it is not going to be a material factor for us. Yeah. Sorry, I should have mentioned. We have six hotels, 820 rooms, and that's it, not really much exposure at all. On your second question. First, we're very pleased that the fundamental health of our business is in great shape. Our signings are growing, our openings are growing, our RevPAR is growing, our margin is growing, our operating profit, cash conversion, EPS. The model is working. It takes a lot of hard work from the teams around the world, and it's a result really of the strategy that we presented to you in 2024. At the beginning, we talked about broadening the reach of our brands, broadening our geographic reach, working on our costs, working on our conversion, adding great technology and commercial platforms, all to make the model work even better for guests and for owners and for our shareholders. It's working. Even in a time where you have some geopolitical conflict in the Middle East, the rest of the business is so diversified now, it can more than offset it and continue to grow, not just in earnings and profit, but also in net system size growth. We're not putting a ceiling really on where we go with net system size growth. I think it's further, clearly, from where we are today, given the strength of our signings, openings, and the recognition that we're getting from owners for the brands that we have either acquired and accelerated or we have launched and accelerated. I mean, look at Garner. Three years on, 220 hotels open in the pipeline, a dozen countries, more than I would've ever imagined, and more coming. Noted Collection, we talked about it just a few months ago with three signings. Actually, the first two in the Middle East, despite everything going on there. There's momentum there. I don't know when we'll reach our cruising altitude. I'm not eager to reach our cruising altitude because it just means that we've topped off. I just think there's more to go. The triangulation from there is already narrowing, by the way, as Michael said. It narrowed 40 basis points year -over- year in the half. It'll continue to narrow, but there will still be some lag as long as yea- over -year, we're opening more than we did over the recent time. It does take, especially in luxury and lifestyle, two to three years to get to the full steady state revenues and steady state fee schedule. So there will continue to be a lag even after you open the hotel, but it's good. It just means that there are more fees coming from higher growth in the business. On your last question. Yes, we are all in the same industry, but we tend to be similar in some ways and different in others. Let me just give you a few ways where we are different than others, and then there are some things that we are similar. Yes, we are all exposed to, say, inflation and interest rates. We are all exposed to macro events or say that can happen, but then your distribution and the shape of your business matter. In the Americas, for example, we are 85% Essentials and Suites. That is Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, our extended stay brands, Avid, Atwell. 85% broadly distributed, not really concentrated in urban areas where you will have higher union costs, higher operating costs, higher taxes, and really full service hotels with higher just operating costs. Yes, we have some of those great properties, but we are 85% Essentials and Suites, which makes us different from others. I am not saying there is anything wrong with their shape, but we just have a different shape, which over time has served us well. We are growing more in luxury and lifestyle, but on a huge base of Essentials and Suites. So that is one difference. Another difference is that we are much more indexed to industrial businesses in the heartland, much more indexed to energy, to manufacturing, to construction, to technology than we are, say, to professional services. Which again, nothing wrong with those segments, but we are less indexed to that. We are more to traditional industries and manufacturing construction, which is actually having a pretty good moment now. So, that is another difference. I am not sure who of our peers have owner associations or do not. I would not know. I know we do, and it is a very constructive relationship. I used to sit on the board of that as our representative. Jolyon, my successor in Americas, does that now, and we have a constructive, and we do not always agree on everything, but we find constructive outcomes, always in the interest of the health of the system and the health of our franchisees and owners. So, we have that dialogue, and it works well for us. There are other things that make each company different from the other. So just because we are in the same geography does not mean that everything affects us in a similar way. Jaina, thank you for your questions, and we are ready for the next one. Your next question comes to line of Leo Carrington from Citi. Your line is open. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I have three. Firstly, on RevPAR, the growth has been primarily rate driven, probably also if you excluded the World Cup effect in the U.S. too. How do you frame the ADR growth in the first half of the year? Is it pricing power? Is it yields management? Really interested in how you see it. Secondly, on residences, as noted, or I heard in your presentation, we are expecting the fee growth to be more substantial in 2027 and beyond, I think. Can you just give us some color on the pipeline visibility for 2027 and how material this ancillary fee can become? Lastly, on key money, I think it was broadly stable or even down year-over-year. Is broadly stable the outlook, despite what I think is a little mix shift towards luxury and lifestyle in the pipeline? Thank you. Okay. We are pleased with our RevPAR growth of 4.1% in the first half of the year, and it was broadly based. Every region grew RevPAR. Every brand grew RevPAR. Every segment grew RevPAR. So it was actually more balanced than in previous times. We are actually pleased to see some occupancy growth return. There were a lot of questions in the past from some participants about, is it only going to be rate growth? We saw healthy rate growth. We also saw healthy occupancy growth on pretty high levels. Every region had occupancy growth, and every region had rate growth. I think that in the long term, typically, the majority, not all, but the majority of RevPAR growth comes from ADR anyway, and this distribution that we saw in the first half, it is probably similar to historic distributions of overall RevPAR growth, plus or minus a few basis points. What is that down to? The World Cup was. We are saying it is going to be a 40 basis point factor in the whole year. So it is not the biggest mover, and we never talked about it in the beginning of the year as being a big mover, and we are not saying it is now. It was great. I had a lot of fun. I went to a match. I watched as many games as I could. I think it was a great commercial success. It met all of our expectations, but it is not the fundamental driver. The fundamental driver are really two things. One, strong fundamentals in the markets where we operate. Very strong fundamentals in the U.S., recovering industry in China, great attraction to people traveling into Europe. Inbound to Europe is up again, expected to be up 5% from the U.S. this year. High spending, and all that, as we said, more than offset the impact in the Middle East. That's one key thing. The second thing to take advantage of the strong fundamentals is a strong enterprise at IHG. Our brands are doing well. We've been really taking care of our brands. Stronger cut through marketing. Our loyalty program now, 160 million people. Greater room nights penetration. We said we hit 67% room nights penetration around the world, 73% in the U.S. We're right there among the leadership of the industry now in penetration. That drives better RevPAR, drives better economics. Also at the bottom line for owners. Yes, and our commercial and technology systems we think are as good as they get. This global sales force that's driving groups and meetings and events. You saw our groups business doing well, and meeting and events doing well. That's really something we're investing a lot in. Our technology platforms, not just our revenue management system that we've put in place now 18 months across the whole estate, but we have our new POS system, PMS system in 2,000 hotels, planning to be in 4,000 hotels. Our marketing programs are becoming a lot more efficient with AI, cheaper to produce, faster turnover, more marketing per dollar, more effectiveness per dollar. Our owner support is stronger. Our procurement service for owners is stronger. Our total value propositions for owners is stronger, which is translating in more signings and more openings, greater share of conversions. We're taking a strong share of conversions, which means owners are preferring our system, our platform to others, in a very competitive industry. It's just not one thing that is driving the healthy RevPAR. It's, yes, good fundamentals. We benefit like everybody else does in the industry. But then within that, we're taking share by having a strong enterprise across multiple fronts. Residences, it's a small part of our business today, but it's a growing part of our businesses. I think I said, or I don't know if I told you, I've been to the Middle East twice already since the beginning of the year. We're already in conversations with owners there for more projects despite the conflict. Our residences here at the Six Senses in London are almost, I think, all sold out but for one unit. If any one of you are interested, we can send you to the right people. We think that in 2027, some of these projects are already under construction today, go into sales mode. From there, you anticipate more fees coming in. It'll still be early, but it's a multi-year buildup to what we think is going to be a material business in our total diversification of our fee streams. Leo, I just would add on to that. We've got 35 hotels or branded residents open and selling around the world in 19 different countries, and even more in early stages of development, as Elie talked about. There are some in the Middle East that could cause some delays or slower sales momentum, but we feel like that's going to normalize over time. But we've got projects across Southeast Asia, Europe, and the U.S. that are progressing very well. We did talk about at full year results that we were somewhere in the $5 million - $10 million range last year. And we've been saying that that could be multitudes of what it was then. And that is still how we believe and can get, and be substantial in 2027 and beyond. I'll move into key money there. Yes, our key money was down slightly in the first half. I don't think there's anything systemic or anything that I would call out specific around that. We continue to say that our key money and maintenance capital will be in the $200 million - $250 million range. We see no reason to change that right now. We did have the big step-up a couple of years ago, certainly as we moved into luxury and lifestyle. That continues to be case, but we're good at the $200 million- $250 million range as we've laid out. I just want to add to sort of combining your last two questions. The reason residences has really opened up as a new business line and fee opportunity for us is because of the strength of our luxury and lifestyle business, is because of the strength of our ultra-luxury in Regent and in Six Senses. So these things kind of build on each other. There's never really one thing, but part of our strategy to go further in luxury and lifestyle was to open up not just our loyalty opportunity and our co-brand opportunity, but to open up residences in addition to in of itself, the great business case of higher fees per key in luxury and lifestyle. But there are incremental, lateral benefits that come with it. Residence is one of them. Thank you, Leo. We can go on to the next question. Thank you very much. Your next question comes from the line of Estelle Weingrod from JPM. Your line is open. Hello? Estelle, your line is open. Maybe we come back to Estelle if somehow her audio isn't working. We'd love to hear from you. Your next question comes from the line of Richard Clarke from Bernstein. Your line is open. Hi there. Good morning. I guess a few follow-ups from what we've been asked so far. Just on the key money point, I guess another theme of Q2 earnings has been a step-up in key requirements to grow mid-scale conversion brands. Have you seen any of that trend for Garner in the U.S. that you're being asked for key money a little bit more regularly? Secondly, very obviously very strong unit growth. I think you're the only one of the other major hotel groups maybe where the pipeline's growing a little bit slower than the unit growth. Looks like a couple of fairly meaty terminations in InterContinental and Crowne Plaza in the first half. Just anything to call out those Middle East projects that have been perpetually delayed. Then just, you call it an important development, this new commercial delivery model. Just anything you can give us around what is the scale of that? How much money are you saving for owners? What exactly is that? What are those additional specialized commercial services that owners are buying and what changes have you actually made on that front? Thank you, Richard. Just to your first question, no. We're not seeing more key money or really key money at all for Garner. In mainstream, if there ever is key money for us, it's where it's, say, an urban property that's in a high barrier to entry, much higher RevPAR, so it's kind of working like a premium to default, not full service, but a premium property at that point. But no, Garner's growing very well in the Americas, growing now in another dozen countries. Very pleased with this pace, and we've done it thoughtfully also by maintaining a very high quality estate. But really no key money to speak of there. I think we mentioned in one of the scripts that we actually opened the first Garners in Japan last year, and now we have another portfolio of which 12 are going to be Garners in Kyoto. That's a really high-value market. It's very exciting to go in with such a distribution into Kyoto. So no on that, and I think we're about in the right place on key money. Continue to grow our system and staying efficient and capital-light and asset-light. On the pipeline, look, the biggest reason the pipeline did not grow as much as it could have is because of record openings. You had 52% openings in China. That was really strong openings. I think that's really the main reason. We're not seeing any out-of-the-ordinary exits in the Middle East whatsoever. There might be a delay of some of the projects for a quarter or two, not that we've registered that yet. Certainly, we haven't heard of any cancellations. Keep in mind, our pipeline in the Middle East, 90% of it is in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey. We do have some of it, of course, in U.A.E., very little in the other countries. But 90% in KSA, Egypt, and Turkey, which are far less affected, sit in the front line of where the conflict is today. We feel pretty good about our pipeline there. Commercial services. Today, not just Americas, but globally, but starting in Americas, we have, in addition to the commercial benefits that our owners get as part of their franchise or management agreement, we have a premium commercial services program that offers field marketing, digital support, web support, additional training, group efforts. Just a whole menu of things, web design, on and on. A whole menu of things that hotels sometimes choose to outsource or leave with us. We are happy to do it. We have used technology, efficiencies, new processes. We spent over a year redesigning this to provide an even deeper and greater package of support at a lower cost. We rolled this out this year to 500 hotels. It is performing very well, saving the hotels money. We will come back with some statistics. But there is also confidentiality and competitive advantage that we want to maintain. Everybody is working hard to make sure their owner offer is the best out there. We think ours is, but we are not going to give anybody any clues on how to make theirs better. But it is a material benefit because it is one of the things that we do not just develop this thing in isolation. We work with owners every time we develop something like this. They tell us what they are looking for. We respond. They tell us what a meaningful savings or benefit would be, and we respond and work in collaboration with it. So it is material to them. Thank you, Richard. Let us go to the next question. Maybe Estelle is back? Your next question comes the line of Estelle Weingrod from JPM. Your line is open. Hi, everyone. Can you hear me? Yes, we got you. Yeah. Okay, great. Thanks. Sorry. Don't know what happened. I've got three questions, please. The first one on current trading. You did speak about China. I wanted to ask on EMEA as well, how do you think H2 evolve in the Middle East with what we know now? Second question, business was comparatively weaker in Q2. Is there anything to flag? I guess group remains strong, leisure got better, could be partly helped by the World Cup, but business seems to have decelerated overall in Q2. And the last one on cash. Any phasing to be aware of? I mean, H1 was quite solid, and you're now targeting the lower end of the range for interest expense and a slightly lower tax rate. Does it mean cash conversion this year should be better than initially anticipated, perhaps? Thank you. Okay. I'm going to take the first question on EMEA trading and hand it over to Michael about our segment's business leisure growth by region, which I think we're pleased in general about. We know that there's an impact in Middle East, but other than that, it's been a pretty good trend. I'll leave cash conversion with Michael, too. We're not making projections, and of course, we don't give guidance, and it's not easy to project trading in an area with conflict and some tensions. But I think the general sense is a few things. First, that we're past the peak of the conflict, which was March, April. There's not a sense when you're there, and I've been there twice, meeting with our teams, meeting with owners, investors, government officials, a whole range of people, and of course, observing from here and from the U.S., there's not a sense that we're going to go back to that level of conflict. Since the conflict peak has subsided, we've seen a recovery. Not a V-shaped recovery. We've seen a recovery on a rolling monthly basis. If things stay where they are today, where there's tension, but no hot conflict as of March and April as it was then, I think you're going to continue to see that gradual recovery and occupancy. You're going to continue to see a lot of domestic business as we saw the staycations, the domestic business picking up and more flights coming in, more people transiting through and more people traveling there. Actually, when you're on the ground there, Estelle, I was in Doha, I was in Dubai, it feels very normal. You don't feel like there's a conflict going on whatsoever. People don't talk about it. People go about their business, go to office, go to work, go shopping, go here, go there. There are fewer people moving around in airports, but the airports are still pretty busy, I felt, but it's probably, not probably, it's definitely lower than the peak. But it's recovering, and frankly, the airfares are pretty attractive to draw people through. I think that in a scenario where things kind of stay where they are today, which frankly for the Middle East is not uncommon, I'm from the region, sort of dealing with tension and conflict is not a new thing. If they kind of stay where they are today for some time, say, for the rest of the year, I think we'll continue a gradual recovery, and we believe that we can fully offset any impact that comes from that environment through the end of the year and beyond. Now, yes, it'll give us probably good comps next year when we get to Q2. But setting that aside, we actually do hope that there's a clearer and nearer term resolution to the conflict. But even if there isn't, it stays like this for a while, we do think there's a gradual recovery. It's a very resilient region, very resilient people, courageous people. They're not sitting still. We talked about new deals, new projects, new signings, opportunities when I was there, that there wasn't a sense of pulling back among a broad range of players in the marketplace. That's Middle East. Over to you, Michael. Sure. As we look at the demand drivers, it was very pleasing to see that actually all three of the demand drivers were up globally in terms of the first half. Business was up 2%, leisure up 3%, and groups up 6%. Even in EMEA with all the conflict and noise, you saw all three demand drivers up in the half. As you go to the U.S., Elie talked a bit about China. Business was up 3%, leisure up 4%, and groups up 10%. We are seeing strong growth across really all those demand drivers. It goes back to, it is not just all related to the World Cup. The World Cup, we said in the quarter, was about 100 basis points of impact in the U.S. When you look at what is going on in the U.S., actually underlying is pretty strong growth. We still have unemployment levels at all-time highs. The economy is still growing. Wages are generally keeping up with inflation, and consumers are still spending. To the business side, corporate profits are still strong, and there is significant levels of private investment going into the economy in building. That is not just around AI, that is energy, manufacturing, chips, pharmaceuticals. All of that really creates an environment where we see business demand continuing to be strong as we go forward in the U.S. We feel good about where we sit in terms of all of our demand drivers. Remember that group is probably half business and half leisure. So maybe business meetings, business conferences, business get-togethers. That is business travel, maybe of a different kind, but still business travel and actually maybe more profitable for our hotels because you get F&B and you get banquet and you get catering with it, and they tend to be longer stays. Our cash conversion, on your final question, has been really strong into the first half. If you look at it on a trailing 12 month, we are over 100%. As we look into the full year, we still think it will be around 100% cash conversion. We feel really good about that. No change to our model and what we would say there. We are really pleased in how we can move cash and bring in that cash. Thanks for that. We can go to the next caller. Your next question comes from the line of Jarrod Castle from UBS. Your line is open. Great. Thanks very much. Probably three from me as well. Elie, you talk about keys with fees, and just if you can give some color in terms of U.S. military contracts, how competitive it is to win such a contract, how the economics look, potentially any other conversations just to give some color there. Secondly, obviously you continue to do really well in terms of fee margin improvement as 100 basis points-150 basis points. Americas is getting close to 85% now. How much longer do you think you can actually drive this when you look over the next three to five years? Is that going to continue to go on upwards? Then you've spoken a lot about owners this morning, but just interested to get your thoughts on how much AI can take out costs for your owners. A competitor was hinting at double-digit reduction in cost rates. Do you have any views on that? Thanks very much. All right. I'll take the first and last question. Leave the fee margin improvement in Americas to Michael. I'll say we've been getting that question for as long as I remember, and we keep making improvements. I hope we keep getting that question because we're making improvements in the Americas margin. Look, in terms of the Air Force deal, we're in advanced negotiations to conclude that agreement, which I have high confidence will get signed. We've been the lodging partner along with Centinel for the U.S. Army on their U.S. bases for over a dozen years now in a very successful arrangement that's brought high quality branded lodging to the U.S. Army men and women and to their visitors on base. In general, the economics are similar, not the same sort of configuration, but they end up being similar in terms of net fees per key as a typical off-base franchise. Just a different structure because the demand drivers are different and how they account for things are different. It's a good business. Let me put it this way. We don't disclose the economics, but it's a very good business. It's totally asset-light for us. Centinel is a development company. They will do the development and the ownership. We will do the management. There's no key money involved, and they're very long agreements. We're actually very proud to have been selected. It was a very competitive process with the best in the industry competing, and not just on economics. I think economics was one, but not the primary aspect, not the primary factor. It's your track record, your capabilities, the strength of your brands, the strength of your platforms, your technology, your service, your reputation, your hotel opening, and support structures to get all these conversions and new builds done. It's a very wide range of factors that get assessed over multiple months and with serious due diligence. I think it's actually an assessment, an external assessment from a very disciplined actor of the strength of our enterprise and of our capabilities, and I'm very pleased with the team effort that we made to get there. Are there other opportunities? I guess you can just do the math yourself. There are three main services in the U.S. Military, the Air Force, the Army, and the Navy. The Marines kind of follow the Navy in lodging. I'm not going to make any predictions, but there is one more. These things are very long-term. We're going to be very busy with the Air Force project for a number of years. The good thing is, it's, yes, a positive sign for the strength of our business in the Americas and overall, but it also further underpins our confidence in growing net system size growth. Fees, let me underline. On AI hotel cost reduction. As we said in the presentations today, our artificial intelligence strategy and priorities are focused in three areas. One, guest acquisition. Number two, hotel performance. Number three, corporate efficiency and effectiveness. Your question is really around hotel performance, and we work hard to use artificial intelligence to improve the hotel performance on multiple fronts. First, the top line. You always have to start with the top line, because that's really the strongest driver of hotel profitability, and that's our commercial systems, our new revenue management systems, our loyalty, our marketing, all of which are being infused with AI today. The new content manager system that is going out this year that you heard about, or will hear about if you listen to the Checks In episode, is AI driven. Our new CRM system is AI driven. The trip planning that we just announced, the conversational search on our website and app, so you can use natural language to specify and design and customize your trip and your experience with IHG, is helping the top line. Yes, we're using AI to help your middle line, your cost, and so that will work across the full P&L. There's more to come. We're not going to attach a percentage to it. Frankly, I would say it's way too early for anybody in the industry to put a percentage on what it could be, because it's an evolving technology, and when you start to get to the middle of the P&L in operations, there are a lot of things that aren't common across regions, across brands, across jurisdictions, but there's definitely an opportunity. In the end, I would say that all of this is really designed to help owners be more effective and more profitable, which goes to the whole owner economic conversation we started earlier today. I'll pick up on fee margin- Yeah. -if you want, Elie. Before I do that, I just want to make sure I clarify on my answer to Estelle. I might have said record levels of unemployment. I really meant record levels of employment, just to be clear there. It's a big difference, but I want to make sure that that was taken the right way. In terms of fee margin and how far this can go, if you look at where we've said, you've actually seen Americas continue to grow their fee margin. EMEA and Greater China saw really strong growth of fee margin. We put it in the medium to long-term algorithm because we do believe there is further growth in that fee margin. I think you got to go back to the fundamentals of this business, and what's great about our unit growth is we can add those units without adding cost. You may go back to the slide I showed where we call it the jaw slide, where revenue is growing and costs are basically remaining pretty low or muted, and that is what we can do as a business. I think over the medium to long term, we can continue to still grow that 100 basis points -1 50 basis points of margin. Really, we wouldn't put a time limit on it at this point, so there's still lots of opportunity to continue to move forward. All right. Thank you. Great. Thank you very much. We shall move to the next question. Your next question comes from the line of Kate Xiao from Bank of America. Your line is open. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I have got two. The first one, in terms of your portfolio, specifically in China. One of your peers recently talked about pressure of heightened removals, especially in lower chain scale brands in China. Just wondering, obviously, we do not see that in your numbers, but just wondering whether you are seeing similar dynamics in recent periods. The second question, it is a follow-up on owner service programs. I was just wondering whether you currently would provide services such as, I do not know, IT software procurement to non-owners, like independent hotels that is not in your system. Do you think that could be a fee revenue stream for the group. Thank you very much. Thank you, Kate. In China, I think this is one of those questions and circumstances, it goes back to a comment made earlier that some things are read acrosses and some things are not, because businesses have different shapes, different situations that may create idiosyncratic, particular circumstances, upside or downside, that are not necessarily translatable to others. In China, we have built a fully controlled IHG business with no partners or JVs or master franchisees. Not saying that is the bad thing or good, we are saying it just is not what we think has worked for us or will work for us. I think that has made sure that we have a high quality estate, very close relationships with owners where we are the direct participant with owners and partner. Strong governance over the quality of our hotels. We do not say yes to all deals. As incredible as it may sound, the 12% in system size growth could be even more if we told our teams to sign the maximum number of deals. No, we want to sign the right number of deals with the right fees per key in markets where we think the hotel will perform. I am not saying everybody does that, I do not know what they do. But if they are not doing that may expose them to heightened removals over time. We want to keep the right balance of growing thoughtfully, sustainably, with the right fees per key, with the right performance of hotels, and the right economics to the owners. Because, look, we all know that when the hotel economics do not work, eventually it is not a good situation for either of us. We are, having been in the business a long time, we have learned from that. We do have removals that happen in China. We talk about that being mostly today, besides sort of the organic, healthy, rejuvenation of the estate. Some of that has been driven by post-COVID properties that are not really suited for the industry anymore, but that has been attenuating and then leveling off. Other than that, we do not see anything unusual in the industry, and we are confident in the continued growth of our system in China, and the health of it, too. So your second question is pretty short answer. No, we would not make our services available a la carte to anybody that is a non-owner in our system. If you think about it, we first of all invest a lot to build the strength of our brands, the strength of our platforms, our relationships, the quality of our products, the strength of our marketing. The owners, through the contributions they make to the system fund, are investing to build other resources. So those are things that belong to the two of us. That strength is something we share in common, and people would love to rent the power of IHG One Rewards. They would love to rent the power of some of our technology. But we are not a consulting firm or a services firm. We are a branded hospitality firm and franchise that managed with direct relationships with our owners, and our services are specific and only for them. Got it. Thank you. Thank you, Kate. Next question, please. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone. That is star followed by one on your telephone. Your next question comes to line of Alex Brignall from Rothschild & Co Redburn. Your line is open. Morning. Thank you for taking the questions. I think going back to a couple of the points we've gone on already. Just on key money, it's been one of those topics obviously big in the industry, and there's been a bit of drift on what hotels have been willing to tell us that's happening there. Marriott, I think for the first time of any, admitted that half of their key money this year was going to existing contracts and also a lot more was going to mid-scale. Could you just talk about that? I know you've talked about things that are read acrosses and aren't read acrosses, but the key money trend for all the hotels has been very similar over the last few years. Whether there's a risk that there's contagion of that into the rest of the competing hotels. Then just onto the fee growth dilution. Understanding of the comments you've made, even in answers to me in previous quarters about the timing. But in the U.S. specifically, your NUG has been decelerating, but there is still a material gap, hundreds of basis points between your fee revenue growth and your NUG plus RevPAR, even if I just take at reported RevPAR. I'm struggling to reconcile why the acceleration in growth would be a fact in the U.S., because that's not what the growth is doing. The third one is just in terms of loyalty points. One of the issues in the Marriott owner letter, which kind of raised the most concern, was the point that they made about kind of forced member signups on premise, and then very poor economics on loyalty night sales. And obviously that might be specific, but you, a couple of years ago, took loyalty point sales out of the system fund or out of your group and put them onto the P&L. Has there been any pushback to that? Has there been any questions on the balance of economics? Or could you just give us a bit of detail on how the economics of loyalty nights work in terms of the split of it between yourselves and the owners? Because obviously Marriott has faced a lot of questions on that. Thank you. Thank you, Alex. As Michael said, our key money is stable this year. Our total capital guidance is stable. Our asset light business model and algorithm is working, and we don't see anything to alter that at the moment. We're very competitive, but we compete hard for the deals that we think are accretive to us, and we don't go after every single deal too, which is the responsible thing to do. We have not disclosed what is the share of-- I think what you're getting to is share of retention key money versus completely new project key money, whether conversion or new build. But that bumps around. It's not going in a particular direction for us, and so we don't see a trend there for us. It's not a number we're disclosing, but we don't see a trend. And we don't know what other competitors have chosen to say and for what reason or what point. That's for them to explain. But we don't think we see a trend between retention and new project. I would observe that our retention is getting better as you see our removals reducing gradually over time, as I said we would, as a percentage of the estate. While we're very focused on keeping a high quality estate, it's not retention at all costs. We want to keep a high quality estate. But you've seen our openings and signings go up, so we're more on offense, I would say. We've been more and more and increasingly on offense here, and that's where more of our resources and attention are going. And no, we're not seeing more going to mid-scale. As I said earlier on the call, there are some projects that are urban, high barrier to entry or end up being in a great resort destination, but it's a Holiday Inn Express, or it's a Holiday Inn in amazing locations can have a high RevPAR. That will have some level of incentive in it in many cases. But it's not a broad trend, and it's not any different than it used to be. It was like this when I joined 12 years ago. It's like this today. The numbers, of course, are different. RevPAR is higher, costs are higher, everything's different. But on a percentage basis, proportionally, it's the same. Sure. I'll let Michael talk about the Americas margin and triangulation. I would just say one thing. It is not correct that our Americas net system size growth is not growing. It's actually the opposite. If you go to this year, our year-on-year and year-to-date, net system size growth in Americas is higher than last year. It's not lower. It's higher. I just want to establish that factually first and turn it over to Michael for the rest of that, and I'll pick up on loyalty points, et cetera. Yeah, Alex, just to give you the numbers there. If you look back at the half year 2025, in the Americas, we were at 0.1% year-over-year system growth. This year, we're at 1.8%. You've seen a number. You've seen that there is some acceleration there. Actually, if we go all the way back to full year 2023, we were at 0.8%. Then in 2024, we were at 1.6%, 2025, we ended up at 1.6% again. We've done 1.8% this first half. So it is accelerating. It is still going. I would also maybe also remind you that we did talk about some of the large exits that we had in last year as well. You may have remembered, we talked about a few hotels that exited in 2025 that were large fee-paying hotels. We do have some replacements coming in for those. They just haven't fully opened and fully ramped yet. That will come back over time. More importantly, if you look at the number and how it's improved and narrowed, it's improved by 110 basis points year-over-year. So we feel like we're on the right track in the Americas in doing that and accelerating that growth. Again, this is a good thing. Like I said, there's always some bits of noise in there, but we're definitely on the right track. Yeah. The net system size growth in America is ramping up. The triangulation is narrowing. We're opening up more in luxury and lifestyle, which is a positive thing, while still growing very strong in mainstream and everyday brands. On loyalty, there's a lot in your question, and we can talk a long time about that. We feel like we're in a very good place on the loyalty program, on the owner economics. We redesigned it about three years ago, working with our own association to agree with them. What do we think is an attractive offer for guests today, but also attractive economics for owners today? I'll tell you that almost invariably, what I hear more from our owners isn't that they think the loyalty plan doesn't work for them, is they want more loyalty guests. They want more loyalty guests. When we, five years ago, we were at 50% or below room nights contribution around the world, what our owners wanted most, I am telling you about our IHG owners, was they want us to be higher in loyalty contribution, not lower. They wanted a stronger loyalty plan. That is what we have done over the last five years. Now you fast forward five years, we are at 67% loyalty contribution, 73% in the U.S. Overwhelmingly I hear from owners, that is something they are proud of, they are pleased with, and they are part of that. You talked about sign-ups at the property. That is not the only form of sign-up. Increasingly, sign-ups are digital, but people at the front desk are proud of the brand they work for, are proud of representing IHG Hotels & Resorts. There are incentives for them to do it. It is not mandatory. It is something that they do voluntarily and they do with pride. That is just natural. It has been in the industry all the time. I do not think we have any pushback on that. We are now at 160 million members around the world. Reward night penetration is up. Milestone usage is up. Engagement is up. The contribution to our hotels is up, and that is really what our owners really wanted us to do. I think that we have a program that we feel is working not just for the guests, but for the owners, and for IHG too. It has to work for everybody at once, and it has taken the collaboration that we have to fine-tune it. Now it is different probably, and we do not sit and have all the detail on everybody's programs, but it is probably different than the programs of others, and everyone can design their program to suit their needs. Thank you. Maybe just coming back to the fee growth. Obviously in H1 it accelerated, but I guess my question ties it just to the longer trend. In FY 2025, your NUG in the U.S. is 0.2%, but the gap widened to 310 basis points in terms of the shortfall of revenue growth. I am just trying to triangulate. That was a year where NUG decelerated and the gap widened. It has kind of gone back the other way, which we would not expect this because it has accelerated, so I thought it might widen, and it widened last year. I am just trying to put the two together with the answer you gave. Yeah, I don't think we're seeing what you're seeing. We're confident that going forward, our triangulation is improving, that our NUG is increasing, and we might need to have our team follow up with you on those figures to make sure that we look at it the same way you're looking at it. But we're not seeing what you're seeing. But we'll follow up with you- Okay. Thank you. -to make sure that we clarify any question you have. Thank you, Alex, for your questions. Thanks, Alex. Let's go to the next. There are no further questions. I want to hand over to management for closing remarks. Well, thank you everyone. It's just been great to connect with you today. We are very proud of what our teams have accomplished in the first half of 2026, and we remain confident in our ability to continue delivering on our strategy and driving shareholder value creation going forward. Our next market communication will be our third quarter trading update on Thursday, 22nd of October. Thank you for your time and interest in IHG, and I look forward to catching up with you soon.