ATLANTA— Apparently you can teach an old dog new tricks, and give it some teeth, too. InterContinental Hotels Group yesterday made it official it would bring to market in mid-November a new generation of Holiday Inn, a “balanced” full-service prototype that will maintain the core concept of the 51-year-old legacy brand while adding “trend-forward touches,” such as property-wide wireless Internet access. The property is slated to open here in Atlanta, where the U.K.-based lodging group currently is holding its Global Investors & Leadership Conference in tandem with its General Managers Conference at the Georgia World Conference Center. The 143-room prototype will be the first of 25 such hotels the brand will bring online over the next three years, with a total of 40 thus far in the pipeline, according to Stevan Porter, IHG’s president/The Americas. The prototype, with 2,000 square feet of meeting space and a restaurant concept focused on comfort food, will define the Holiday Inn product in a new way, noted Mark Snyder, senior vp/brand management for Holiday Inn Hotels & Resorts, “while keeping all of the heart and soul— the beauty of the Holiday Inn experience— intact…we intend to tell the great American success story of Holiday Inn in subtle, yet meaningful, ways.” For example, guestrooms will include the brand’s classic green and white logo towel and a copy of Holiday Inns founder Kemmons Wilson’s book, “Half Luck And Half Brains: The Kemmons Wilson, Holiday Inn Story.” In addition, a new version of the seminal franchise’s “Great Sign” will debut as part of the prototype’s launch. “For the Holiday Inn brand, 2004 becomes a turning point for the future,” said Snyder. “We are the authors, charged with writing the next 50 years of this great story called Holiday Inn.” Next year also will see a strong push by IHG to double the distribution of its eponymous brand, InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, in the United States and Canada, where it currently has 16 hotels. The expansion, expected to take 10 years, will be fueled by securing management contracts rather than real estate. And for the first time in the two target countries, InterContinental franchises will be offered, a plan brought to light in March by HOTEL BUSINESS®. Considered underrepresented in the countries, target markets for the luxury brand include gateway cities such as Orlando, Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix and Seattle, where a new 113-room hotel is slated to open in 2006 as part of a mixed-use development that will include 38 luxury condominiums. As previously reported by HOTEL BUSINESS®, the InterContinental Wildflower will open in fourth-quarter 2005, the first domestic U.S. resort for the brand. The 500-room property is the core component of a $200 million master-planned resort development currently under way in Grand Prairie, TX. In Canada, IHG last week raised the banner on its new flagship, the 586-room InterContinental Toronto Center adjacent to the Toronto Convention Center. Change, such as the two brands will experience over the long term, will be part of the IHG paradigm as it goes forward, Porter indicated in his keynote speech on the conference’s second day. “Change is a constant in our lives. It can be awkward, it can be frustrating— for all of us,” he told the attendees. “But it is for the betterment of the system.” Before it brings its conference to a close today, Kirk Kinsell, senior vp/Americas Franchising will drill down the GUEST quality evaluation system for attendees. Later, IHG will conduct two separate Q&A sessions on current issues of concern for investors and franchisees as well as general managers and directors of sales. Tom Murray, COO/The Americas, will lead the latter presentation; the International Association of Holiday Inns will facilitate the former. Workshops and brand sessions will round out the day and a music-filled “Sounds of the South” closing celebration will be held tonight.
