ATLANTA, Ga., May 31--Xinhua-PRNewswire-AsiaNet/InfoQuest Celebrating Its 10-Year Anniversary as the First Hotel Company to Take Online Reservations, IHG is Offering 20 Percent Or More Off Room Rates for Summer Travel Around the World. InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) (LON: IHG; NYSE: IHG (ADRs)), the world's largest and most global hotel company, announces that in celebration of its 10-year anniversary as the first hotel company to take online reservations, it is holding the largest and most global online sale. From June 6 through June 10, 2005, participating hotels from InterContinental Hotels Group's brands including InterContinental Hotels and Resorts, Crowne Plaza Hotels and Resorts, Holiday Inn Hotels and Resorts, Express by Holiday Inn, Staybridge Suites, Candlewood Suites and Hotel Indigo will be offering rooms at significant savings of 20 percent or more, with some even offering up to 40 percent off, on stays from July 1 through September 10, 2005. These brands are some of the world's most recognised and respected, with hotels in nearly 100 countries. Guests will be able to book their summer travel at more than 1,300 participating hotels in key destinations worldwide, including but not limited to Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Cancun, Chicago, London, New York, Paris, Rome, San Francisco, Shanghai, Toronto and Washington, D.C." To take advantage of this offer, guests, must book their travel at www.ichotels.com/10years. Additionally, for those guests who prefer to book in a language other than English, this offer is available in Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish via the ichotels.com/10years Web site. "Ten years ago when we launched our first Web site for Holiday Inn, we were pioneers of this untested, unproven channel. For perspective, when we announced the site in June 1995, current Internet titans eBay and Amazon.com hadn't even hit the Web; but we believed in the Internet's tremendous potential as a powerful reservation channel for our customers and pushed on. Ten years later, our Web sites have grown from a $1 million business to more than $1 billion business," said Eric Pearson, Senior Vice President, E-Commerce, InterContinental Hotels Group. Last year the Holiday Inn Web site ranked number one over all other Web sites, including traditional third party sites, as the number one source for online hotel reservations according to a D.K. Shifflet & Associates study. This is the first time that a hotel brand Web site has achieved this status. "By making it easier, more convenient and safer for our guests to book their travel on our sites, we've seen our online bookings grow worldwide from 1,800 in 1995 to more than 5.2 million in 2004. We've gone from celebrating a major milestone of $10,000 in gross revenue in a single day in 1995 to more than $7 million in 2005. Holding the largest global online sale is a way for us to show our guests how much we appreciate their business and to thank them for their loyalty to our brands," said Pearson. As the first hotel company to take online reservations, InterContinental Hotels Group has initiated many other online innovations and industry 'firsts', setting the bar increasingly higher for quality online reservations delivery, including: -- First to offer full-functionality Web sites in seven languages -- First to offer Travel Arranger, allowing Priority Club(R) Rewards members to make hotel reservations on behalf of others -- First to receive and display the TRUSTe and TRUSTe Children's Privacy Seals certifying online privacy and protection -- First to offer best publicly available rates online through its Lowest Internet Rate Guarantee -- First to provide the ability on its Web sites to review, cancel or modify reservations made via any of its channels These innovations help ensure that InterContinental Hotels Group's guests can book easily and with confidence; the confidence that they will always get the best available rate online, that that their reservation will be there when they arrive and that their security and privacy will be protected. Note to Editors: InterContinental Hotels Group PLC of the United Kingdom (LON: IHG; NYSE: IHG(ADRs)) is the world's largest hotel group by number of rooms. InterContinental Hotels Group owns, manages, leases or franchises, through various subsidiaries, more than 3,500 hotels and 535,000 guest rooms in nearly 100 countries and territories around the world. The Group owns a portfolio of well recognised and respected hotel brands including InterContinental(R) Hotels & Resorts, Crowne Plaza(R) Hotels & Resorts, Holiday Inn(R) Hotels and Resorts, Holiday Inn Express(R), Staybridge Suites(R), Candlewood Suites(R) and Hotel IndigoTM and also manages the world's largest hotel loyalty programme, Priority Club(R) Rewards, with over 24 million members worldwide. In addition to this, InterContinental Hotels Group has a 47.5% interest in Britvic, one of the two leading manufacturers of soft drinks, by value and volume, in Great Britain. InterContinental Hotels Group offers information and online reservations for all its hotel brands at www.ichotelsgroup.com and information for the Priority Club Rewards programme at www.priorityclub.com . For the latest news from InterContinental Hotels Group, visit our online Press Office at www.ihgplc.com/media . For further press information and photos, please contact: InterContinental Hotels Group Joanna Ong Tel: +65-6395-6074 Email: [email protected] SOURCE: InterContinental Hotels Group --Distributed by AsiaNet (www.asianetnews.net)--