Word: holidayers
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...modern spirit. The signature color was updated from forest green to a punchier yellow-green. The famous script now slants to the right instead of the left. "Handwriting analysis told us this was more forward-looking," says Amanda Yates of Interbrand. Yup, they analyze this stuff. Green bulbs illuminate Holiday Inns; blue beams shine up the walls of Holiday Inn Expresses. It's "an inexpensive way," says Scott Smith, also of Interbrand, "to make all that different architecture look cohesive." (See 10 things to do in New York City...
Mike Patel, whose Newcrest Management owns 19 hotels, including nine Expresses and one Holiday Inn, likes the changes: "It was overdue. We really needed it." In Stamford, Conn. - home to global financial firms like UBS - the outpost's makeover has lifted it from the bottom of IHG's customer-satisfaction scores. "People say, 'Am I at the right hotel?'" says general manager Mike Bennett. "Companies that wouldn't consider us in the past are now staying with...
...Holiday Inn hopes travelers will be won over by all its new goodies: a cheerful but "kept-real" greeting as part of a new staff-training program, the scent of green tea and ginger in the lobby (as opposed to chlorine from the pool) and a sound track that includes Sting and Bruce Springsteen. And when you step into that room - surprise - a pillow-top mattress with crisp white triple sheeting, a flat-screen television, a bright bathroom with a starched shower curtain and upgraded amenities from Bath & Body Works. Stuff you'd expect to find at higher-priced outfits...
...really luxury hotels that Holiday Inn is chasing. It's your home. In the past decade, consumers have feathered their nests with duvets, technology and plush couches as prices have retreated. So if the hotel is your home away from home, IHG doesn't want you to be greeted by an old tube television if you own a flat-screen. It's the same idea with the bedding. "At home, we don't have heavy old-school floral bedspreads," says Kowalski. And travelers were never enthusiastic about the possibility that those bedspreads weren't washed regularly. Now everything...
Despite a ton of changes, the new Holiday Inn has met with mixed reaction from "seen this before" industry analysts, one even likening the refresh to rearranging the deck chairs on hospitality's Titanic. "They're too big a ship to steer a new course," he says dismissively. Less dramatically, the analysts think the Holiday Inn model, with a full restaurant dishing up three meals a day, is spent. Why would you want to eat at a Holiday Inn when you can hit a nearby Chili...