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)--