...- We now believe that travel and other restrictions imposed due to COVID-19 will likely result in a slower recovery of the lodging sector in 2020 and 2021 than first anticipated in March 2020. We expect that annual demand for hotel rooms could fall by about 50% in 2020 and 30% in 2021, which is a steeper decline than our original forecast, causing leverage to spike higher, with the recovery taking longer, possibly extending into 2023. - For Intercontinental Hotels Group PLC (IHG), this revenue shortfall will be only partly offset by material cost-cutting and cash-conservation initiatives implemented by the company, so we forecast materially weaker credit metrics in 2020 and 2021 than our previous base case. - We are therefore lowering our long-term issuer credit rating on IHG to '###-' from '###', and assigning a negative outlook. - The negative outlook reflects our view that IHG's financial metrics will be under considerable pressure over the next few quarters, given the impact of lockdown...
