Jurys Doyle Hotel Group has said that profit growth will resume after two six-month periods of decline. Pre-tax profits in the half-year to the end of October will be ahead of the same period last year, the company said yesterday.

The continued strength of its Jurys Inn brand was the key driver of current performance, it said, and the division was expected to continue to perform well. "Occupancy levels remain strong in most of our Jurys Inns and our recent new openings, Jurys Inn Birmingham and Jurys Inn Croydon, are performing very well," Jurys said in a pre-close statement.

However, it cautioned that over the remainder of the year, it expected a continuation of the factors which hit trading at other parts of the business in the first half. "Our four-star hotels in Dublin and London are likely to operate in an unchanged environment and this will curtail the momentum growth being achieved by the group," it said.

It noted that its five-star Berkeley Court and Westbury hotels in Dublin were currently trading ahead of last year while its hotel operations in Washington, DC were performing "satisfactorily".

But Jurys said the trading environment in the Dublin and London markets remained "challenging" with business affected by reduced corporate conference and incentive business and reduced tourist activity.

Any improvement would be dependent on the timing and extent of economic recovery which is not expected in the short term, the hotel group said. Despite the difficult background, several of its four-star hotels were trading ahead of last year, it said.

Pre-tax profits in the six months to October 31st, 2001, which included the period directly after the September 11th terrorist attacks in the US, fell by 12 per cent on the previous year.

The group recorded a 3 per cent decline in pre-tax profits in the half-year to the end of April compared with the year-earlier half.

Jurys is in the process of changing its financial year to the end of December and will next report for the eight months to the end of the year.

Shares in the group closed six cents higher at €6.72. Analysts recently downgraded their forecasts for the eight months to the end of December by 8-12 per cent after the company warned trading conditions remained tough in certain markets.