MEDIA CENTRE - Events

IHG Hotels, London (06.23)

Philip was invited to attend the latest IHG Development presentation and here below his take-away nuggets.

• Did you know, someone checks into a Holiday Inn every 3 seconds. The brand remains popular as it is constantly evolving, for example the new innovative open lobby concept (where guest satisfaction is up and revenues are up due to increased dwell times). 
• New concepts include: (i) the 'And Suites' idea, whereby a proportion of rooms inventory is realised as aparthotel units; (ii) the ‘Urban HIEX’ concept for urban settings, whereby smaller standard rooms of 12.7sqm and super small single rooms of 11.5sqm; (iii) HIEX to offer more lifestyle elements, especially in lobby areas.
• IHG’s relatively recent push into the luxury sector is going well following the acquisition of truly luxury and lifestyle brands and the creation of a new flexible top-end brand (namely Kimpton, Regent, Six Senses and Vignette).
• All brands can now be conversion brands, not just Voco, Indigo and Vignette, as Brand Standards have been adapted to be more flexible.
• ESG becoming much more important and recently announced their first carbon-zero project. Will push for more.
• Creepy Big Brother tech is helping IHG determine where to build new hotels and under which brand. Working with a major mobile phone network, they are monitoring mobile phone data and can tell who is away from home, where they are overnighting, how often, for how long and can allocate those folk by demographic group (depending on your phone plan). This data is blended with STR supply data and overlayed with Social Review Scores (particularly useful for conversion opportunities) to identify opportunity areas for new development.
• IHG will consider windowless rooms as part of a balanced room inventory.

Many congratulations for a slick presentation in a beautiful ballroom at a stunning hotel (Kimpton Fitzroy London, where I went for my THF Hotels interview many decades ago and looks totally different today) and many thanks for the most excellent concept of Social Hour in the Palm Court.