LAS VEGAS—Three of IHG’s key brands—Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express and Crowne Plaza—were center stage during the global chain’s recent 2014 Americas Investors & Leadership Conference here, as new directions in design, F&B and fitness were rolled out for the trio.
Some 4,000 IHG owners, general managers and staff members gathered at the Sands Expo as Richard Solomons, CEO, and Kirk Kinsell, president-The Americas, detailed a year’s worth of accomplishments, then set the game plan for the year ahead and beyond.
Boxes checked for 2014 included rolling out new, simpler standards for the three brands; providing free Internet access for the chain’s loyalty program members; access to financing for franchisees via IHG’s chief capital markets officer; opening its first Even hotels; and partnering with Coca-Cola for a summer promotion.
The executives indicated, however, there’d be no laurel-resting if those in attendance and corporate wanted to achieve the conference theme and “Be Number One.”
“Winning is not a sometime thing; to count, it has to be an all-the-time thing,” said Solomons after touting the efforts of several owners who raised the bar on their properties.
Lifting the entire enterprise so that it reaches its aspirational goal of being the preferred brand for not only consumers, but for owners and developers, continues to be the overarching driver for the mega chain. Toward this goal, IHG is rolling out another wave of initiatives at both the corporate and brand levels.
“Winning is easier than you might think, provided you have a plan and you know what you’re doing. And we have a plan and we really do know what we’re doing,” Solomons assured attendees.
For Holiday Inn, whose guest-facing F&B program has been largely defined in recent years by its Kem’s Café & Lounge concept (the name is a nod to Holiday Inn founder, the late Kemmons Wilson) and other outlets, a contemporary, bar-centric, rustic-design restaurant with the quizzical name of Burger Theory is ready to roll out.
Addressing the current trend for specialty hamburgers that offer different gourmet grades of meat and a variety of ingredients, from eclectic to standard, Burger Theory has been in beta test at the Holiday Inn Airport South in Atlanta, where it has done “extremely well,” according to Holiday Inn VP Maurice Cooper.
The brand will look to add the concept, which also features craft beers and desserts, to several more hotels between now and Q1.
Cooper added there are two more F&B solutions in development that will complement Burger Theory; however, they will be vetted and tested prior to any rollout. “We’re not going to offer up a solution until we feel confident it’s going to be successful and that it can work in a diverse set of hotels,” said Cooper.
Food and beverage will be at the heart of how the brand competes differently, he indicated. “We are on a journey to transform F&B at Holiday Inn by creating relevant, desirable and efficient breakfasts, by giving every hotel access to the tools needed to deliver with excellence [F&B] in the evening and by building several exciting new concepts that redefine guest expectations of what a hotel dining solution should be and by redefining [owners’] belief in what food and beverage can deliver,” he said.
For example, the brand has developed the E.A.T.—Evening Acceleration Toolkit—Bar & Grill program aimed at providing owners and their staffs with the training and tools to ensure a consistent evening F&B experience for guests, running the gamut from menu planning, recipes and efficient food prep to plating guides, scalable menus and financial management tips.
Breakfast also will get a revamp. The brand has been testing four breakfast options at 10 hotels and will ultimately create one integrated breakfast solution, said Cooper.
At Holiday Inn Express the brand is being refreshed both literally and figuratively. A new design program, dubbed “Formula Blue,” is geared for new builds and those properties doing renovations.
“We did not design this solution alone,” said Jennifer Gribble, VP/Holiday Inn Express, Americas. “We worked closely with the IHG Owners Association, and we created an Owner Advisory Board made up of a select group of experienced developers who provided feedback on every idea.”
She noted the Formula Blue design package is currently available, with one exception: a sliding, acoustic door that separates the bedroom from the rest of the room, which is still being considered.
Gribble said the cost to implement for new-builds “is extremely competitive.” The prototype, which is 93 guestrooms with an interior pool, is approximately $80,000 per key, based on construction in a major market, Atlanta. Land and soft costs are not included. She noted renovation costs would be trickier to calculate since construction costs vary from market to market; however, she indicated the new SRD (standard room design) scheme is up to 5% less expensive than previous schemes available. “The average total cost per guestroom and public space FF&E for an average renovation in an 87-room hotel, with an equal mix of king and double-queen rooms, is approximately $600,000, or less than $7,000 per key,” she said.
To help owners better amortize such expenses, Kinsell said IHG would extend license agreements to 15 years for renovation of Holiday Inn Express hotels.
“I know there are some concerns about renovations and PIPs,” said Kinsell, “So we’re taking the time to fine-tune our plans before we make our new design solution a requirement.”
Gribble said Formula Blue architecture, SRD and vendors would be required for all new hotels entering the system. It also will be required of all PIP renovations effective April 1. “This is the design of the future of the Holiday Inn Express brand,” she said.
Holiday Inn, too, is in the process of developing renovation solutions and is at the beginning stages of developing a new guestroom SRD, to be followed by public space solutions. “By the end of 2015, the Holiday Inn brand will deliver a full design solution for our guestrooms and public spaces anchored in the same turnkey procurement solution that’s being used by Holiday Inn Express,” said Cooper.
Holiday Inn Express also is revamping and relaunching its classic “Stay Smart” ad campaign, which originally debuted in 1998, that propels ordinary people into extraordinary circumstances that they handle with ease, all because they “did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.” This time around, a central figure—comedian Jim Gaffigan—caught in a dilemma, exhorts: “Did anybody stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night?”
The tweaking of the line is deliberate and aimed at engaging the consumer, as the campaign has been implemented on a digital platform. According to Gribble, “This question allows for a great two-way conversation, which is so important if we want to grab our guests’ attention in the digital space. And to continue the conversation, we’ve created an integrated platform that includes sponsorships, partnerships and digital channels.”
For example, the brand is sponsoring the Oddball Comedy Festival, which is run by the comedy website Funny or Die and where HIEx content can be found.
Similarly, the selection of Gaffigan was bolstered by his social media status, including more than two million followers on Twitter. He’s also featured in both radio and video content for Holiday Inn Express.
Holiday Inn, meanwhile, has taken a distinct leap into a more traditional medium. On Nov. 16, the legacy brand got its own television series, with the brand and CNN/HLN producing a six-episode series, Growing America: A Journey to Success.
At Crowne Plaza, guestroom redesign is a done deal, with the brand debuting its new look during conference. The brand worked for the past two years with designers Future Agenda and Pearson Lloyd to create what is being billed as the BizPro Room.
The guestroom introduces an angled-bed design that has a padded, curved headboard along with insulated wall panels on each side of the room that reduce noise levels, according to IHG. The guestroom is slated to launch in the Americas in 2015 at the Crowne Plaza Atlanta Midtown and with other early adopters.
Crowne Plaza also introduced a new fitness center, drawing inspiration from its sibling, wellness brand Even Hotels.
“Fitness and well-being are at the core of the Even Hotels brand proposition,” explained Chief Commercial Officer Oliver Bonke. “So we had to build out the best fitness center in the industry to meet the needs of these demanding guests. Now, rather than having each brand design its own fitness center, we’re applying all that great learning to create a solution that works across all brands,” he said.
Solomons added IHG “has made a commitment to invest more than $50 million into growing the brand and retaining key assets.”
For other IHG brands, Bonke said the company would test a cutting-edge marketing campaign for Even Hotels; double its spend for Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites, launching new advertising; and plot a new campaign for Hotel Indigo. The InterContinental Hotel brand will receive attention on a global level.
On the corporate side, Solomons said, in 2015, IHG will make its Green Engage online environmental platform a standard, with no charge for access. This helps owners track, measure and reduce energy, water and waste.
Kinsell said a new procurement solution, IHG Marketplace—designed to leverage the mega chain’s scale—would launch in January. “IHG Marketplace is a true one-stop shop for everything from technology to FF&E to specific products and services we recommend or mandate, through our brand standards,” said Kinsell.
The company will continue exploring its Anywhere Check-In program for mobile devices, which is currently in 500 IHG properties.
In addition, Chief Commercial Officer Keith Barr stressed greater efforts would made to have more stays booked direct, rather than through OTAs or metamediaries such as Kayak, leveraging IHG’s Priority Rewards Club.
“Our members in the Americas stay three times more nights than non-members,” noted Barr. “They generate roughly 75% of the repeat business and are 3.5 times more likely to book direct than a non-member.”
Other conference highlights included Buggsi Patel, outgoing chairman of the IHG Owners Association, symbolically passing the torch to Kerry V. Ranson, incoming chairman and president/COO of Expotel Hospitality Services, and the presentation of the Kemmons Wilson Award to industry veteran and former Holiday Inn Worldwide President/COO Michael Leven, president/COO of Las Vegas Sands Corp., who is set to retire at the end of the year.