InterContinental Hotels Group plc, informally InterContinental Hotels or IHG, is a British multinational hospitality company headquartered in Denham, Buckinghamshire. IHG has 809,889 guest rooms and 5,431 hotels across nearly 100 countries. IHG includes several brands such as Candlewood Suites, Crowne Plaza, Even Hotels, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Hotel Indigo, Hualuxe, InterContinental, Kimpton Hotels and Resorts and Staybridge Suites.
Video InterContinental Hotels Group
History
Bass Hotels
The origins of InterContinental Hotels Group can be traced back to 1777, when William Bass established the Bass Brewery in Burton-upon-Trent. In 1876, its red triangle logo was the first ever trademark registered in the United Kingdom.
In 1969, Bass Charrington as it was at the time launched the Crest Hotel chain, marking its first entry into the lodging sector.
In 1989, the British Government limited the number of pubs which brewers could directly own, resulting in Bass's further investing in the expansion of its hotel business. This led to it purchasing Holiday Inn International from shareholders.
InterContinental
Pan American Airways founder Juan Trippe established the Intercontinental Hotels chain as a division of Pan Am and opened the first hotel in Belém, Brazil in 1946. On August 19, 1981, Pan Am sold the holding company Inter-Continental Hotels Corporation (IHC) to UK-based Grand Metropolitan for $500 million. As GrandMet focused its core business and expanded into fast food through the purchase of Burger King, it sold IHC to the Japanese-based Saison Group in 1988.
In March 1998, Saison Group sold IHC to the British brewery Bass. In 2000, Bass sold its brewing assets (and the rights to the Bass name) to the Belgian brewer Interbrew for £2.3 billion and changed its name to Six Continents.
In 2003, the independent corporation InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) was created after Six Continents split into two companies: Mitchells & Butlers took control of the restaurant assets, while IHG focused on hotels and soft drinks. IHG retained Britvic, the soft drinks division, until December 2005 when it sold its interest in the company by an initial public offering. In April/May 2014, the company reportedly rejected a $10 billion takeover bid from an unknown suitor, believed to be Starwood.
In April 2017, the company announced that it been the subject of a malware attack and hackers had stolen credit card details.
Maps InterContinental Hotels Group
Operations
The company worldwide headquarters and Europe offices are in Denham, Buckinghamshire in England. The Americas office is in Dunwoody, Georgia in Greater Atlanta. The Asia, Middle East, and Africa offices are in Singapore. The Greater China offices are in Pudong, Shanghai. In 2006, IHG and Lend Lease Group (Lend Lease US Public Partnerships), joined forces in the Privatization of Army Lodging program.
As of 2012, of IHG's more than 5,400 hotels, 4,433 are operated under franchise agreements, 907 were managed by the company but separately owned, and eight were directly owned.
Criticism
International boycott
The InterContinental Hotels Group became the target of an international boycott campaign in May 2013, over their plan to operate an Intercontinental-brand luxury hotel in Lhasa, Tibet. According to campaigners from the Free Tibet campaign, the hotel was a "PR coup for the Chinese government".
Price fixing
In July 2012, the Office of Fair Trading alleged that IHG had broken competition law by preventing online travel agents from discounting the price of room-only hotel accommodation. In February 2014, IHG agreed to end the practice of price fixing.
Data breach
In February 2017, the hotel chain admitted to a data breach. They asserted that the compromise was rather minor, having only impacted 12 properties. However, in April 2017 it raised the number to 1200 hotels. The attackers had installed malware designed to access payment card data, which could be used to clone cards and make fraudulent payments.
VAT rules
In May 2012, the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) warned IHG that it must not use adverts showing prices for hotel rooms excluding VAT. Because the ASA thought the adverts were likely to be viewed by consumers who must pay VAT, it had decided the adverts were misleading. It ordered IHG that the ads must not appear in their current form again. However, in August 2012, a report by Which? magazine showed that the hotel chain was still breaching VAT rules.
Living wage
In November 2017, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, accused the hotel chain of reneging on a commitment to pay the living wage.
Brands
IHG Group has several brands including:
- avid
- Candlewood Suites
- Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts
- EVEN Hotels
- Holiday Inn Hotels & Resorts, the number two hotel brand in the world by number of rooms
- Holiday Inn Club Vacations
- Holiday Inn Express
- Holiday Inn Resort
- Hotel Indigo
- Hualuxe Hotels & Resorts
- InterContinental
- Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants
- Regent Hotels & Resorts
- Staybridge Suites
- voco
Notable properties
The Crowne Plaza Liverpool John Lennon Airport is the former terminal building of Liverpool Speke Airport, constructed in the 1930s and used until 1986. Its notable art deco features led to its listing as a heritage building, and subsequent adaption as a hotel.
The hotel in the Wilshire Grand Tower in downtown Los Angeles is the largest InterContinental in the Americas and the tallest building in Los Angeles.
The InterContinental Davos is well known for its modern architecture.
Other notable properties include the historical InterContinental Paris Le Grand Hotel, the InterContinental Bordeaux Le Grand Hotel in France, and the InterContinental Amstel Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
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