With the two-year global brand relaunch effort nearly complete, executives with IHG’s Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express brands are turning their attention to updating the legacy brands’ food and beverage offerings.
Saying that its guests would rather intermingle than be in-room loners, Holiday Inn is planning to convert its hotel bars into a “social hub” featuring interactive video games, a dining patio and fire pits, and business centers will be relocated to areas adjacent to the social hub. From a culinary perspective, the changes will focus on replacing standard lunch and dinner menus with shareable upscale bar fare.
A handful of Holiday Inn properties will begin testing the altered F&B arrangement next year, with a brand-wide implementation targeted for 2012. IHG does not plan to require significant capital expenditures for the new bar configurations, instead allowing hotels to make the physical changes as part of larger renovations. The menu changes, however, will go into effect with or without the physical improvements.
While the changes will mostly impact lunch and dinner service, Holiday Inn Express does have some breakfast news as well: the brands will also begin offering self-serve pancakes next year. While self-serve waffles are a staple across many midscale hotel brands, the similar but distinctively different pancake has yet to gain such widespread acceptance as a do-it-yourself breakfast item. Holiday Inn Express’ new machines will let guests make their own pancakes in as little as 17 seconds.
Source: www.hotelsmag.com