InterContinental Hotels Group to open 14 new Holiday Inn hotels in India

31 March 2008

New Delhi: The UK-based International hotels group InterContinental Hotels Group Plc or IHG, as it now calls itself, says it will soon unveil 14 new Holiday Inn hotels in 11 cities across India to the five that it currently operates in the country.

Holiday Inn is one of the world's largest hotel brands, with 1,381 hotels globally and 94 hotels across Asia Pacific. Late last year, it announced a worldwide $1-billion relaunch for Holiday Inn, aimed at  ensuring the brand maintained its leadership position.

The properties are in various stages of development and will together add more than 3,700 rooms in India's luxury hospitality sector over the next three years.

Three of the hotels will be located in Bangalore with the remaining hotels in Delhi and Dehradun in the north, Cochin and Coimbatore in the south, Kolkata in the east, Mumbai and Pune in the west, and Nagpur in central India. IHG says all 14 hotels will feature contemporary design, including new Holiday Inn brand standards such as signature bedding and customised fragrance and music.

The 2007 BDRC Asia Pacific Business Hotel Guest Survey ranked Holiday Inn as the top midscale hotel choice among business travellers in India, and the best mid market hotel brand in Asia Pacific and the world in a Business Traveller Asia Pacific readers survey for seven consecutive years.

"India is an important market for IHG, where both domestic and international traffic is increasing and new travel segments are opening up,'' saysPeter Gowers, chief executive, IHG Asia Pacific. ''In the Indian hotel business, the greatest opportunity for growth is in the midscale segment, in which Holiday Inn has a leading position. Holiday Inn now accounts for almost three quarters of our new developments in India. An increasing portfolio of new hotels will ensure Holiday Inn continues to be the number one midscale hotel choice among guests and owners."