NEW YORK— InterContinental Hotels and Resorts is receiving a strong response from its $25 million advertising campaign launched last month, Stevan Porter, president of Six Continents Hotels, the Americas, told HOTEL BUSINESS®. The global campaign, which seeks to revitalize the 56-year-old upper-upscale brand, is intended to appeal to understated, yet powerful international travelers, according to the company. InterContinental, meanwhile, is also undergoing a fresh period of development, as well. Already boasting 140 hotels across the world in its portfolio, InterContinental intends to grow in size with expansion here in the United States, as well as abroad. In fact, a deal has already been signed for a new-build in Boston, and the company “is close” to a deal in the Buckhead section of Atlanta, said Richard North, group finance director, 6C plc, parent company of 6C North America. North is set to step into the leadership role for 6C plc once shareholders of the company approve its recently announced demerger with its pub business. Also in the works are new-builds for San Diego and Seattle, North said. “We presently have 12 properties in the United States; our plan over the next three years is to have 16,” he said. InterContinental is also searching for hotels to purchase and re-brand, following the same strategy it used when it purchased the former Regent Hong Kong and the former Ritz-Carlton on New York’s Central Park South. However, it has been difficult to find good acquisitions, thanks to the state of the economy, which makes the gap between the bid-ask price larger than ever, North said. Meanwhile, InterContinental continues to refurbish its existing properties, having committed $1 billion to upgrade its assets by 2004. As a result, plans are in place to close down the famed May Fair InterContinental in London for a year for a massive refurbishment, just as it had for Le Grand Hotel InterContinental in Paris, which is still undergoing its rehab. Other investments are being made in properties in New York; Miami; Vienna, Austria; Budapest, Hungary; Madrid; and San Francisco, he said. 6C Plc. (then known as Bass Plc) purchased InterContinental in 1998 from a Japanese firm. “It was highly leveraged, and little had been invested in it,” said North. While 6C quickly went to work on refurbishing existing properties to bring back the “grand” image they once held, creating a marketing campaign took a bit longer. Now, based on customer feedback and customer focus groups from 1,000 consumers aged 30 to 60 in 25 countries, the global brand— whose first property was in Sao Paolo, Brazil— is seeking to reconnect with business travelers who are “quietly confident, and tend not to be flashy or stay in flashy places,” noted Jeff Senior, vp/marketing for the brand. Ads feature business travelers in posh hotel settings using a variety of messages, such as “It doesn’t have to be that tough at the top.” Along with the campaign, new services, amenities and technology for the international business travel have been launched, including “Instant Money,” which provides a pack of local currency, valued up to US$25 in small denominations, so hotel guests can tip appropriately when arriving at the hotel; a power and phone jack in every guestrooms; a free 15-minute head and neck massage for selected guests; TV programming from guests’ native countries; and a jetlag recovery kit. InterContinental’s 40,000 employees worldwide have already undergone extensive training to support the new service commitment, Porter said. The campaign was being launched now to position InterContinental well for 2003, when he said he expects the lodging industry to recover from its current downturn. Amidst all the talk of ad campaigns, new properties and new services, perhaps the most notable change for the brand, which was launched in 1946 by Pan Am, includes removing the hyphen from the spelling of the InterContinental name. “A lot of [media]were asking us
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