InterContinental Hotels Group, which includes manufacturers such as Holiday Inn, InterContinental Hotels, and Kimpton, will announce the introduction of a 17th logo next week, a reliable source said.
Speaking at the HotelBeds MarketHub Americas convention in Cancun on Wednesday, IHG’s Philippe Garnier, the chain’s vice chairman of third-birthday party distribution, didn’t screen many details about the new emblem but said it might be in the suite area.
At Skift Forum Europe in London on April 30, CEO Keith Barr mentioned the approaching emblem release, including the need to be strategic in approximate logo additions to avoid bloat.
While lots of IHG’s competitors, together with Hilton and Marriott, have been walking campaigns and emphasizing direct bookings, in which visitors find the bottom costs for loyalty program participants at the chains’ websites, Garnier in Cancun said IHG recognizes that now not all people prefer or can e-book its properties direct.
“We like direct bookings,” Garnier instructed around 600 attendees at the convention center on the Grand Palladium Costa Mujeres Inn. “Shock, wonder. But we’re satisfied to interact with 1/3 events as nicely.”
Garnier welcomed the de-escalation of overdue rhetoric about an alleged reserving war between inns and online travel agencies. It’s not only a matter of the director’s booking being precise and the third-birthday party securing being bad; he also delivered.
However, one location of difficulty is there needs to be extra “reconciliation” among 0.33-celebration bookings and the desires of IHG’s loyalty program. “We are considering it,” Garnier said. He delivered that the chain doesn’t have a magic wand to cope with the trouble, and the two need to evolve.
One theme throughout the convention is the convergence of inns and opportunity lodges, as outlined in a Skift keynote before the day. As distinct inside the Skift Megatrend, Everything Is Merging in Hospitality.
The Skift keynote explains how, within the last month, I Independently announced that Airbnb would open a Manhattan Hotel, Marriott decided to enter home-sharing, and Airbnb invested in Oyo inns. Oyo received vacation condo assets from supervisor @LeisureGroup.
Garnier of IHG stated IHG is calling at-home sharing but has to determine it’d match given that its visitors enjoy a fairly constant experience across its current 16 — and soon-to-be 17 — manufacturers.
In different news, Cliff Galitz, companion development manager for Google Travel, stated consumers looking for a resort peruse forty-five “digital touchpoints” when discovering an inn, up from 39 in 2017. He said that the finding, which changed into a part of client research executed with McKinsey, makes the customer reserving journey more complicated. That research takes location in 60 sessions over 36 days on common, Galitz stated.
Some 70 percent of vacationers have no emblem in their thoughts when beginning a Google search for a motel, Galitz said, including that marketers must get more involved in the concept aspect of travel planning to get higher in the traveler attention set.
