IHG seeks new jewels for the Crowne
InterContinental Hotels Group plans to revitalise its Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts upscale brand.
Nearly 400 hotels around the world carry the Crowne Plaza brand, with 178 of those in North America.
IHG itself owns very few of the hotels so the onus to upgrade properties will be on the hotel owners.
The company said it intends to focus Crowne Plaza on young, aspiring travellers who it calls “strivers.”
IHG says those travellers often use Skype and Facebook, buy clothes from stores such as Brooks Brothers and Gap Inc.’s Banana Republic and drive pricey cars such as BMWs.
“For these business travellers, travel isn’t the goal. Success is the goal,” said Kevin Kowalski, IHG’s senior vice president of brand management.
In the first phase of IHG’s “repositioning” of Crowne Plaza, hotel owners choosing not to upgrade will likely lose the brand. IHG pursued a similar policy when upgrading its Holiday Inn branded hotels.
“We, as a company, are prepared to lose the hotels that cannot or will not take this journey with us,” IHG CEO Richard Solomons said.
Ian Jarrett
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