11 March 2009

World's largest Holiday Inn will open in Moscow

InterContinental Hotels Group is to build a 1,000-room Holiday Inn in Moscow, due to open in 2014.

Set to be the worldÃ¢â¬â¢s biggest Holiday Inn, it will be located in Crocus City, a retail and leisure complex in the rapidly developing Krasnogorsk area of Moscow.

With an investment of more that $100 million from developers, Crocus Group, IHG will operate the hotel under a 20-year management contract.

The Moscow hotel will have meeting facilities occupying 2,500 square metres, three restaurants and a 1,200 square metre health club.

Kirk Kinsell, president, IHG Europe, Middle East and Africa, said: Ã¢â¬ÅâœItÃ¢â¬â¢s rewarding for us to be able to sign such significant long-term deals with our investment partners in the current economic climate and shows our partners understand the benefits of building IHG branded hotels.Ã¢â¬~

There are already seven IHG branded hotels open in Russia and a further 13 in the pipeline.

The 13 hotels in the pipeline include seven Holiday Inn hotels, three Crowne Plaza hotels, two Staybridge Suites and an InterContinental Hotel in Moscow.

Meanwhile, the group said its global $1 billion Holiday Inn relaunch is on track for completion by the end of 2010.

Close to 600 Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express hotels will be operating under the new standards by the end of March.

IHG said the relaunched hotels are showing increased guest satisfaction scores as well as an uplift in RevPAR.

The next biggest Holiday Inn in the world is the Holiday Inn Chengdu Century City in China at 965 rooms, followed by the Holiday Inn London Kensington Forum in the UK, which has 910 rooms.

By Bev Fearis