InterContinental Hotels Group is to launch an upper mid-scale hotel brand in China by the end of this year.

The unnamed brand will be positioned between the company’s upscale hotel chain Crowne Plaza and its luxury brand InterContinental.

InterContinental expects China to overtake the US as the world’s largest hotel market by 2025, and to double the size of the current US market by 2039.

The hotel group plans to double its number of rooms in emerging markets such as China, India and the Middle East over the next few years.