Six Continents, the hotel and pub chain formerly known as Bass, has produced profits ahead of expectations which were dampened by the slump in travel since 11 September.

The group said its businesses are still resilient despite the pounding they have taken, although sales at its hotel operations in October dropped $30m from the previous year.

Overall, Six Continents said it made a pretax profit of �731m ($1.03bn) before one-off costs in the year to September, down from �756m the year before but ahead of forecasts of �710-725m.

Sales rose nearly 7% to �4.03bn

Six Continents operates 3,200 hotels across almost 100 countries and 2,000 restuarants and bars in Germany and the UK.

Pub popularity

The hotel business - which includes the Inter-Continental, Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza brands - has suffered in the wake of 11 September attacks.

But the pubs and drinks business is still going strong, and helped offset the decline in tourism.

The group's UK pubs and restaurants, such as the All Bar One chain, O'Neills and Harvester, saw sales rise 8.6% in the first eight weeks of the new financial year.

And the Britvic soft drinks business saw volumes rise more than 4%, after seeing profits soar 23% in the year to September.

In London, Six Continents shares were marked up by 3.7% at 1140 GMT.