— HSH’S 2026 INTERIM RESULTS
KEY HIGHLIGHTS
- Disciplined strategic execution: We made clear progress in delivering our “Vision 2035: Perform and Transform” agenda: strengthening operating momentum, hotel performance and brand recognition today, while advancing the guest experience, asset renewal and capital discipline that will shape the future. Strong RevPAR growth in key regions, external recognitions including La Liste, and the upcoming renovation projects at The Peninsula Hong Kong and The Peninsula Tokyo reflect the current performance of the business, the strength of the brand and our commitment to long-term relevance.
- Return to profitability: The group returned to profitability in 1H 2026, with profit attributable to shareholders of HK$23 million, compared with a HK$289 million loss in 1H 2025. Consolidated revenue and consolidated EBITDA both rose by 20%, driven principally by stronger hotel performance in Greater China and the US, the continued ramp-up of our newer European properties, together with disciplined pricing and careful cost control. Our Commercial Properties and Peak Tram, Retail and Others divisions continued to provide balance and resilience to the group.
- Optimistic for the future: We enter the second half of the year with improved momentum and a clearer strategic agenda, while remaining agile amid geopolitical uncertainty, currency volatility and uneven luxury demand. As we continue to invest selectively in our assets, people and guest experience, we remain committed to building on The Peninsula’s reputation as a purveyor of timeless luxury – preserving the magnificent heritage of our past while helping define the future of luxury for generations to come.
The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels, Limited today announced its interim results for 2026. Commenting on the announcement, CEO Benjamin Vuchot said:
CEO REVIEW
The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels, Limited delivered an improved first-half performance in 2026, returning to profitability and recording stronger revenue, EBITDA and key operating metrics. This represented a meaningful recovery in earnings and operating momentum from the same period last year, and reflects the resilience of global luxury travel, stronger demand in key hotel markets, the enduring strength of The Peninsula brand and the dedication of our colleagues around the world.
Profit attributable to shareholders was HK$23 million for the first half, compared with a loss of HK$289 million a year earlier. Combined revenue increased by 8% year-on-year to HK$3,951 million before contribution from The Peninsula London Residences, while combined EBITDA rose by 22% to HK$853 million. Including The Peninsula London Residences, revenue was HK$4,346 million, reflecting the sale of two residential apartments during the period. The improvement was led by the Hotels division, particularly in Greater China and the United States, supported by stable earnings from Commercial Properties.
These results should be viewed in the context of the strategic review completed in 2025 and the Vision 2035 framework now guiding the business. Our near-term focus is to execute the “Perform and Transform” strategic agenda, strengthening the fundamentals of our existing hotel portfolio across brand, service and revenue management, while embracing operational excellence in all our properties. We are preparing the group for its next phase through disciplined capital allocation, selective reinvestment in our core assets and partnership-led opportunities.
The dedication of our teams is also reflected in the recognition our hotels continue to receive. The Peninsula Shanghai and The Peninsula Chicago were ranked joint number one in La Liste’s World’s Best Hotels 2026, while The Peninsula Paris was named among La Liste’s Top 100 Hotels. These accolades are a tribute to the passion, care and commitment our colleagues bring to every guest experience.
The macro travel environment remains uneven, but the luxury sector continues to show resilience, particularly where demand is driven by highly personalised, experience-led travel. The World Travel and Tourism Council expects global travel and tourism to grow faster than the wider economy in 2026 and over the next decade, while recent studies by Bain, McKinsey and Deloitte have highlighted a structural shift towards luxury experiences, personalisation, wellness, cultural connection and destination-led stays. This external context is consistent with what we are seeing in our own business: demand is strongest where luxury is experiential, personal and deeply connected to the destination.
This evolving luxury travel environment aligns closely with The Peninsula’s long-standing strengths. Across the group, we are continuing to develop distinctive experiences that bring together destination, culture and service, including Peninsula Academy, Peninsula Time, Peninsula Signature Events, bespoke motoring journeys, the Pen 1 yacht experience in Istanbul and carefully choreographed arrival experiences across our hotels. These initiatives deepen guest engagement, strengthen emotional connection to our brand and support our strategy to place memorable, highly personalised experiences at the heart of our luxury positioning.
Against this backdrop, the following section sets out the performance of our three divisions, with stronger momentum in Hotels, stable earnings from Commercial Properties and a continued focus on enhancing The Peak and our related operating businesses.
BUSINESS PERFORMANCE
Our group comprises three key divisions – Hotels, Commercial Properties and Peak Tram, Retail and Others.
1. Hotels Division
The Peninsula Hotels
The Hotels division was the principal driver of the group’s first-half improvement, with all key indicators showing significant progress compared with the same period last year. Hotels revenue increased by 10% year-on-year to HK$3,116 million, while hotels EBITDA rose by 24% to HK$579 million. This performance reflected stronger occupancy, higher average rates, improved RevPAR and careful cost management, with particularly encouraging contributions from North Asia and the United States, together with the growing impact of our newer European hotels.
Greater China
Greater China delivered a strong first-half performance, with average RevPAR increasing by 29% compared with the same period last year. The improvement reflected higher occupancy, stronger average rates, increased overseas visitors and disciplined cost control across the region.
The Peninsula Hong Kong continued to demonstrate the value of its heritage, location and loyal customer base in a competitive market, with The Peninsula Arcade benefiting from recovering luxury footfall and high-quality tenant demand, while the Office Tower was managed carefully against a challenging leasing backdrop. The Peninsula Shanghai performed strongly, supported by individual travellers and a more international guest mix, and The Peninsula Beijing benefited from diplomatic delegations, MICE groups and renewed demand from international travel partners and corporate groups.
Europe
Europe made a stronger contribution to the group’s first-half performance, with average RevPAR increasing by 11% compared with the same period last year. The improvement was supported by The Peninsula London’s growing market presence, continued pricing discipline at The Peninsula Paris and encouraging progress at The Peninsula Istanbul, despite geopolitical uncertainty in the wider Middle East region affecting travel sentiment.
The Peninsula London continued to establish itself among the city’s leading luxury hotels, while the sale of two residences contributed to overall revenue for the period. The Peninsula Istanbul strengthened occupancy and market positioning, and The Peninsula Paris maintained its resilience in a competitive luxury market. Our focus remains on building sustainable long-term performance across the European portfolio.
USA
The United States delivered a strong first-half performance, with average RevPAR increasing by 16% compared with the same period last year. The improvement was supported by resilient domestic demand, higher average rates and healthy group and leisure segments.
The Peninsula New York continued to benefit from its recent renovation, The Peninsula Beverly Hills achieved strong rooms performance, and The Peninsula Chicago was supported by a solid group base as it marked its 25th anniversary in June 2026, a meaningful milestone for both the hotel and the city.
Asia (excluding Greater China)
Asia, excluding Greater China, recorded a modest improvement in the first half, with average RevPAR increasing by 1% compared with the same period last year. Performance was supported by stronger occupancy in The Peninsula Bangkok and The Peninsula Manila, while The Peninsula Tokyo maintained its leading market position and commanded strong rates, despite softer overall demand to Japan. The Peninsula Manila also marked its 50th anniversary during the period.
2. Commercial Properties
The Commercial Properties division continued to provide a stable earnings base for the group, with improved margins during the period. Revenue for the first half was HK$486 million, up 7% year-on-year, while EBITDA increased by 13% to HK$262 million. Residential occupancy remained high at 97%, while the arcades benefited from improved luxury footfall and tenant demand. Office leasing in Hong Kong remained challenging, and we continued to manage this part of the portfolio carefully.
The Repulse Bay performed well, underpinned by robust residential occupancy, a quality tenant base and continued initiatives to enhance its appeal as a distinctive lifestyle destination. Curated cultural and community-led activations supported footfall, tenant engagement and the long-term relevance of the property.
The Peak Tower delivered year-on-year growth in the first half, supported by disciplined cost management and commercial initiatives, including a major collaboration with HSBC Life to create an Illumination and 3D mapping spectacle for visitors. This helped offset softer visitor traffic and adverse weather during the period, particularly in June. We continue to enhance The Peak as one of Hong Kong’s most distinctive visitor destinations through targeted partnerships and experience-led initiatives.
3. Peak Tram, Retail and Others
Peak Tram, Retail and Others recorded modest year-on-year revenue growth of 2% to HK$349 million in the first half, supported by disciplined cost management and stronger contributions from selected operating businesses. Overall performance was also partly offset by softer trading conditions at The Peak and Peninsula Merchandising during the second quarter.
The Peak Tram remains one of Hong Kong’s most recognisable and enduring visitor experiences. While performance during the period was affected by softer visitor demand to the Peak due to adverse weather, we continued to build the appeal of The Peak Tram through targeted partnerships and destination-led activations designed to enhance the visitor experience.
Peninsula Merchandising continued to operate in a cautious retail environment. During the period, we rationalised the retail store network in Japan and China, allowing the business to focus more clearly on product elevation, hotel destination retail, and opportunities that are more closely aligned with The Peninsula brand experience. We are also seeing encouraging wholesale opportunities for our confectionery items, which offer a more scalable way to extend selected Peninsula products while protecting brand quality and margins.
The Quail, our hotel and golf club property in Carmel, California, delivered a steady performance in the first half of 2026, supported by its distinctive positioning as a wedding venue, loyal leisure demand and excellent reputation within the luxury motoring community. The business continued to benefit from its strong brand equity, high-quality partnerships and preparations for its signature August event, The Quail by The Peninsula, A Motorsports Gathering.
Peninsula Clubs and Consultancy Services, which manages The Hong Kong Club, Hong Kong Bankers Club and The Refinery, also contributed positively through higher management fees.
We continued to build our standalone food and beverage and lifestyle capabilities, including Primo Posto in Sheung Wan, Hong Kong. We are also developing other brand-led experiences and initiatives that are consistent with our strategy to extend the Peninsula experience beyond the traditional hotel stay and to create more reasons for guests and local communities to engage with us.
4. Our People
Our colleagues remain at the heart of everything we do. The first quarter of the year began with a goal alignment exercise, through which comprehensive Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) were cascaded from the Executive Committee to global leaders and managers. This company-wide exercise aligns performance with defined strategic business goals across financial performance, guest experience and brand, operational efficiency, our people and Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability. In the same spirit, the company bonus plan for leaders and key management teams will align rewards with financial performance and the cascaded KPIs on our Balanced Scorecard.
We also continued to strengthen governance and management discipline through the Board-level Finance and Investment Committee, which supports more rigorous oversight of capital allocation, investment priorities and long-term value creation.
The Workforce Inclusion and Diversity Policy was introduced in March 2026, formalising our commitment to maintaining a respectful, safe and inclusive work environment. The new policy details non-discriminatory principles across talent management processes, including recruitment, training, compensation, promotion, transfer and termination. In addition, our compliance training on sexual harassment in the workplace was refreshed and rolled out to colleagues globally in April to strengthen workplace safety.
Demonstrating our continued commitment to innovation, our talent acquisition team was recognised by LinkedIn in March as the Best Talent Acquisition Team in the AI Hiring category, and as the AI Pioneer for the Hong Kong and Macau region. Our Learning and Talent Development team is also expanding the e-learning tools available to our colleagues through LinkedIn Learning and the curation of thematic training pathways for our global colleagues.
As of 30 June 2026, there were 7,563 full-time employees in the group.
5. Sustainable Luxury
We continued to advance our commitment to sustainable luxury by embedding sustainability more deeply into governance, operations and the guest experience. For me, this commitment is inseparable from the way we think about long-term stewardship. Luxury need not be wasteful, and the enduring value of our assets depends on disciplined investment, thoughtful design, responsible operations and respect for the communities in which we operate.
The Board-level Sustainability Committee was established in May, strengthening governance and formalising oversight of sustainability and climate-related issues. It ensures alignment between sustainability objectives, key decision-making and capital allocation to support long-term value creation for the company. The Committee held its inaugural meeting in June and is due to convene at least twice a year.
At the operational level, we launched an employee engagement campaign during Earth Day this year to encourage colleagues to discover and celebrate sustainability efforts at each property. This initiative aims to deepen understanding of our efforts and the impact created, and how these initiatives align with the company’s values in supporting our guests, our employees and our communities.
We continued to progress on our Sustainable Luxury goals. The Peninsula Chicago joined as the fifth property in the group to source 100% renewable electricity, contributing to the group’s decarbonisation goals as one of our key efforts in mitigating climate change impact.
In London, we delivered a BREEAM “Show & Tell” event in partnership with the Energy & Environment Alliance, showcasing The Peninsula London as a case study for the opportunities of sustainability and luxury in hospitality real estate. The event reinforced our commitment to sustainable luxury at the outset from design and build to operations, to ensure our assets can yield long-term benefits and are able to endure and stand the test of time.
More details of our achievements in the past year are available in our 2025 CRS Report.
6. Outlook
We enter the second half of 2026 with improved operating momentum, stronger EBITDA and a materially better earnings position than a year ago. The external environment remains mixed, with global travel continuing to grow and luxury hospitality benefiting from a structural shift towards experiences and hyper-personalisation. However, geopolitical uncertainty, currency volatility, cautious luxury retail spending and higher operating costs continue to require careful management.
For Hotels, we expect demand to remain positive in the second half, supported by continued international travel recovery, resilient luxury demand and a growing preference for highly personalised experiences. We will remain focused on capturing high-quality demand, strengthening direct and relationship-led business, improving operating efficiency, and innovating particularly with our restaurant offering, while recognising that some markets may continue to be affected by geopolitical developments, currency movements and shorter booking windows.
For Commercial Properties, we expect residential leasing to remain resilient and our retail offering to benefit from improving visitor flows and lifestyle demand as a result of our targeted marketing campaigns. Office leasing in Hong Kong is showing signs of improvement in core locations, but overall market conditions remain competitive. Our focus will therefore be on maintaining the quality of our tenant base, enhancing the appeal of our assets and managing occupancy and rental levels with discipline.
For Peak Tram, Retail and Others, we expect second-half performance to be supported by disciplined cost management, new commercial partnerships and increased seasonal demand. At The Peak, our new campaigns and experiences will continue to strengthen its appeal as one of Hong Kong’s leading visitor destinations. Peninsula Merchandising will focus on improving sales conversion and margin quality through hotel retail, selected wholesale channels and the important Mid-Autumn mooncake season.
Across the group, our priorities for the remainder of the year are clear: to drive revenue, protect profitability through operational discipline, deepen guest engagement and invest selectively in the assets, people, technology and experiences that will strengthen The Peninsula brand over the long term.
This is also a year of meaningful milestones. As HSH marks its 160th anniversary, The Peninsula Manila its 50th anniversary, The Peninsula Beverly Hills its 35th anniversary and The Peninsula Chicago its 25th anniversary, these occasions remind us of the depth of our heritage and the responsibility we have to keep evolving for the future.
Looking further ahead, the Board has approved renovation projects for The Peninsula Hong Kong and The Peninsula Tokyo, with an estimated budget of HK$2.1 billion. These capital expenditure programmes reflect our confidence in the long-term value of our owned portfolio and our responsibility to ensure that our hotels remain relevant, distinctive and competitive for future generations.
The first-half results give us confidence that the actions we are taking are moving the group in the right direction. I would like to thank the Board for its trust, our colleagues around the world for their dedication and care, our guests and partners for their loyalty, and our shareholders for their continued support as we build the next chapter of HSH.
Download link of the video here
Release Id: 89200157
In the event of detecting errors, concerns, or irregularities in the content shared in this press release that require attention or if there is a need for a press release takedown, we kindly request that you inform us promptly by contacting error@releasecontact.com (it is important to note that this email is the authorized channel for such matters, sending multiple emails to multiple addresses does not necessarily help expedite your request). Our dedicated team will promptly address your feedback within 8 hours and take necessary actions to resolve any identified issues diligently or guide you through the removal process. Providing accurate and dependable information is our utmost priority.