Holiday Inn Brands Delaying Re-Branding

Andrew Calvo | January 21, 2009 | 0 Comments

Back in October 2007 InterContinental Hotel’s Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express set on a chain-wide rebranding, incorporating a new logo for both brands and requiring new amenities in all rooms – flat screen tv’s for example. They even launched a website at http://relaunch.holidayinn.com which goes into detail as to some of the changes to expect.

Its interesting to note that in 2003 Holiday Inn also went under a brand relaunch. Initially it seemed to be mainly tied to including a bistro and indoor waterpark at the hotel – but also a refresh of the logo. Except for the logo, nothing seems to really have taken off with that rebranding. Perhaps they will be more successful this time.

New Holiday Inn Logo

New Holiday Inn Express Logo

When the latest brand relaunch was announced in 2007, the franchise owners were supposed to bear the majority of the costs – IHG was only going to contribute a small amount, which would probably have shown up as a small credit line item on each owner’s monthly statement – or would have been a cost that the franchise owner would never have really paid for in the first place – redoing Holiday Inn’s website, and promotional materials, or something along those lines.

Over the summer there was alot of grumbling from the franchise owners about this rebranding effort, the cost it would entail and the overall decline of the travel industry. While the owners loved the rebranding effort and were pleased to see Holiday Inn finally coming into a more modern age, the timing was just not good.

It seems that Holiday Inn finally got the message and is allowing hotels to wait until the end of 2010 (and not even making that a definite date) to change over their signs and incorporate the other parts of the rebranding. The biggest part was removing the requirement that all hotels have to have flat screen LCD TVs.

In the meantime, in my travels I have only seen one Holiday Inn which has gone through the rebranding process – and that was a brand new hotel in Charleston, SC. At that location, except for the road sign, the Holiday Inn text was used rather than the “H” graphic. One feature I liked alot was how the property seemed to glow green. Not only does it portray a bit of environmental friendliness, its a clean color that shows off very well and makes you think of Holiday Inn.

There is a Holiday Inn down the street from where I live that is currently going through a renovation (new owners rehabiliating an old, tired hotel – the renovation would have been done with or without a chain-wide rebranding effort), and I fully expect the new brand to be displayed throughout the hotel and its signs. It almost seems to me as though the only hotels going through the re-branding are those which are new builds or already going through renovations.

Holiday Inn Express is no better, I have not seen one Holiday Inn Express sporting the new branding, but (I feel like I’m a broken record) there is a Holiday Inn Express being built down the road from me which I fully expect to have the new logos and look of the Holiday Inn Express brand.

Overall, I do agree that Holiday Inn needed this refresh. Some of the hotels were so tired and old it seemed as though they didn’t get the memo that it wasn’t the 50′s when the chain first started out. I’ve seen some hotels still using the former logo which was originally phased out in 2003, and the overall consistency of the hotels is just not there. In some locations a Holiday Inn is a very nice location, whereas in others, the Holiday Inn is up to par with a Motel 6. As part of this relaunch effort IHG is expecting to drop almost half of their 1,100 Holiday Inn franchises.

While my parents may feel that a Holiday Inn is one of the best hotel values for their money – since they did grow up with the brand, and it was the dominate one in the industry for years, I personally would prefer to stay at a Four Points, or Hampton Inn – and notice, those are not full service hotels, they are limited service hotels..

On a creative note though, I’m not a big fan of the boxiness of the new logo. Most hotel brands are creating logos that is not constrained by a shape like a box (The ‘H’ in the new logo seems to always be surrounded by a green box). While the font, and colors reflect a more modern, trendy design – it’s being held back a bit by the boxy design.

The Holiday Inn Express logo is just plain boring – nothing more than the new “H” with the text Holiday Inn Express displayed to the right of it. Its almost as though the design team didn’t even get creative on it! I do hope that there is more to the Express logo than IHG has been displaying on its website and in some promotional materials.

Holiday Inn is back on the right track with this latest relaunch, and it’s great that they are showing some compassion for the economic state by moving the date for when the new look needs to be rolled out, I hope that inbetween now and then IHG doesnt make anymore missteps, because while it is the worlds largest hotel company, its almost turning into Marriott by paying more attention to opening locations rather than propping up their brands and making a story about them.

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