Luxury business hotels’ occupancy rates should start to rise by the end of the third quarter of this year as the meetings and conference sector market revives, the head of one of the world’s leading hotel management companies has forecast.

Reto Wittwer, chairman and chief executive of the Kempinski group, told the Financial Times that after a “devastating [European] spring washout” in the meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions sector, there are signs of better times ahead.

“We’ve got good MICE bookings for September, October and beyond,” he said in Jakarta, where he attended the opening of the chain’s latest hotel.

“The MICE market is usually a good leading indicator of the broader market so we’re optimistic about the end of the year.”

Mr Wittwer’s opinion echoes that of STR Global, one of the world’s leading industry analysis companies. In a recent report it said that occupancy statistics for the first nine months of 2009 are going to make grim reading because of the global recession and because the first three quarters of 2008 were so strong.

But some industry analysts are warning that while meetings might pick up towards the end of the year, conferences and exhibitions will take longer to revive because they have longer lead times. The incentives market is dependent on the broader economy reviving and so is harder to predict.

Alistair Spiers, the head of the Pacific Asia Travel Association Indonesia chapter, said: “I agree we’re likely to see the meetings [sector revive], but the rest of the MICE market is going to take longer.”

Mr Wittwer, whose chain manages 60 hotels round the world outside the US, said 2009 was going to be “a good year but not the best year ever”.

“Our latest forecast suggests it will be similar to 2007,” he said, but declined to give any figures.

The returns round the world are likely to be very mixed however as different countries manage the global recession with varying success. “So far, for example, Abu Dhabi is 40 per cent better than last year while Dubai, only an hour’s drive away, is 50 per cent down,” he said.

Among hotels it is postponing opening those in Dubai and Bangkok.

Kempinski was established in 1897 in Germany. It delisted from the German stock exchange about seven years ago and is now 86 per cent owned by the Crown Property Bureau of Thailand and the rest by a branch of the Bahrain royal family.

Its headquarters are in Switzerland.