Intercontinental Hotel Group’s iconic Holiday Inn brand celebrates its 60th birthday today (August 1).
The brand’s first property was opened in Memphis, Tennessee by entrepreneur Kemmons Wilson, and while this particular hotel closed in the 1990s, the brand now has over 1,300 hotels and around 230,000 rooms worldwide.
IHG says three people now check in to a Holiday Inn property every second, and 100 million guest nights are spent in Holiday Inns every year.
To celebrate the brand’s 60th anniversary IHG is running two competitions on its social media pages.
Holiday Inn was the first brand to introduce amenities such as TVs, in-room telephones and air-conditioning, and the brand is inviting residents of the USA, Canada, Mexico and China to share their own “firsts” on Twitter, Facebook and Chinese microblogging site Weibo during August.
Each day the group will give away 60 free nights to the most memorable posts, in the form of Priority Club points.
Guests from around the world are also invited to share their “Now and Then” photos on Facebook and Weibo until the end of October, with “several” entries being chosen to win a week-long family holiday at a Holiday Inn property of their choice worldwide.
For more information visit ihg.com, holidayinn.com.
Report by Mark Caswell
